


Those Who Live in Two Worlds

by furorem



Category: Mindhunter (TV 2017)
Genre: Drama, Established Relationship, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-18
Updated: 2021-03-13
Packaged: 2021-03-16 20:55:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28837410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/furorem/pseuds/furorem
Summary: While interviewing freshly incarcerated Jeffrey Dahmer, Bill and Holden are forced to face some uncomfortable truths. The plurality and severity of Dahmer’s crimes not only causes outrage in a deeply shocked society, but also puts the strength of their relationship to the test.
Relationships: Holden Ford/Bill Tench
Comments: 15
Kudos: 26





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic deals with the subject of Jeffrey Dahmer. This means the following things, beside murder, will be discussed (in alphabetical order): alcoholism, cannibalism, childhood neglect, clinical vampirism, drug abuse, lobotomies, necrophilia, pedophilia, rape.
> 
> Despite the case being a real-life event, this is still a work of fiction. Which means I will take creative liberties.

Virgina.

July 22nd,1991.

Holden wipes his juice-stained hands on the kitchen towel he has slid from its place over the oven’s door handle. Tomatoes, eggplants and peppers lie abandoned, some of them cut, across the counter like a colorful mosaic of future dinner. Italian, he’d promised Bill. Pasta with roasted vegetables and homemade pesto. Now his attention is turned towards the TV in the adjacent living room. Slowly he walks away from the stove, towel clutched between his hands as he follows the prosaic voices relating the ghastly facts that had caught his attention.

“’From our investigation we feel that his individual is strongly involved in other homicides. We, ah, have taken evidence out of the building by the medical examiner to be examined.’

Police removed boxes and boxes of body parts. Evidence of what appears to be a psychopathic mass murderer. Authorities also took out a barrel of what they think is acid. Police are reluctant to reveal exactly how many victims there might be, but knowledgeable investigators say it could be more than a half a dozen. Neighbors say the man was strange. And that there was an odor coming from the apartment. However, no one suspected the accumulation of dead bodies.

‘And the next thing I know I heard the police open the refrigerator door and they said there was a dead body in there.’

Police are questioning the suspect downtown. All we really know about him is that he is thirty-one years old.” 

Shocked at the scenes playing on TV and the news anchor rattling on about body parts, he doesn’t register the front door opening and closing. Neither does he hear Bill throwing his keys into the bowl with a metallic clang or his heavy steps as he walks the short distance from hallway to living room.

“Holden?”

Eyes still glued to the screen, Holden only slowly turns his head towards Bill, but doesn’t answer the unspoken question as he says, “Have you been listening to the radio?”

Worry quickly dispels Bill’s relaxed mood. In his hands he still carries the bag containing his golf clubs. It had been Holden’s turn to cook and he’d been looking forward to some delicious hot dinner. Instead, his boyfriend is clutching a towel between white-knuckled hands like a lifeline.

“No. Was listening to music.” His slow steps stop once he’s next to Holden, who continues to be uncharacteristically quiet while his gaze is following policemen on the screen, going in and out of a building carrying cardboard boxes. Others, probably people specialized in hazardous waste removal, are clad in yellow suits and are carrying a big drum. It doesn’t take long for Bill to grasp what has captured Holden’s attention so strongly. And with a muttered, “Fucking hell…” he watches the horror Milwaukee has found itself in. A couple of minutes into the report, which is entering the stage of repetition, he’s had enough. Bill turns to assess how far Holden had come before he’s been diverted and lets out a quiet sigh at the jumbled mess of vegetables atop the countertop. Turning towards the kitchen, he plants a firm kiss against the side of Holden’s head, where silver streaks have begun to twinkle amidst brown some time ago, and walks away.

Only now does Holden tear his gaze away from the flickering screen, “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Well, since you’ve found a new interest, I’m going to go and finish dinner. I’m starving. And in need of a shower.”

“Oh.” Holden’s eyes follow Bill with slight embarrassment and a bad conscience as he leans his clubs against the back of the sofa and rolls the sleeves of his shirt up to pick up Holden’s discarded work. “Hey, wait.” He hurries to Bill’s side and gently takes the knife from his hands, catching his eyes.

“Go, take your shower. We agreed it’s my turn.”

“You sure you can unglue yourself from the news?” Bill asks with a small, fond smirk as he relents his grip on the knife. The smirk turns into a chuckle as Holden’s communicative glare shoos him out of the kitchen.

“Do I at least get a kiss?” The glare softens. Holden leans closer, meeting Bill halfway for a quick, raspy kiss. Lips lingering, eyes heavy lidded, he murmurs, “You need to shave.”

With a shake of his head, Bill finally turns to leave the kitchen, collecting his golf clubs on the way to the hallway to put them back into the garage.

When he emerges from the steamy bathroom, refreshed and redolent, the rest of the house is likewise smelling deliciously of dinner, while Holden is perched on the couch, the beer in his hand entirely forgotten. Sighing, because he knows what that intense, focused look on Holden’s face means, he sits down next to him and takes the beer out of his complying hand to take a large gulp himself. His face contorts in disgust - it’s lukewarm.

“Ten bucks these were sexually motivated,” Holden says, almost absentmindedly. 

“Probably.”

He turns to look at Bill. “So you agree.”

“No. I said the probability is high… Don’t even think about it.”

Holden’s brow furrows over confusion-filled eyes. He rises as Bill does and follows him back into the kitchen. “What shouldn’t I think about?”

“Don’t act stupid. I know that look on your face and I know exactly what you’re considering – so I’m telling you, don’t, strike that notion from your pretty little head as fast as possible.”

Turning the oven off and getting the vegetables, he faux-petulantly responds with his back turned to Bill, “I have no –”

“You wanna interview him,” Bill, sitting down at the kitchen table, interrupts him before he can make a bigger fool of himself.

That’s the problem, the lovely advantage, really, when one has known and loved each other for so long. You begin to lead two lives; you begin to live inside two minds.

Holden, two plates in each hand, and Bill, the beer bottle in his left, meet the eyes of the other across the table; the smallest of expressions is seen, registered, immediately understood. An unstoppable force meeting a – not quite unmovable object. But Bill bites his tongue. He won’t give in so easily this time. Years spent with Holden served as practice to harden his resolve.

Holden sets the plates down with a slight bow, the homemade food’s smell drifting upwards to tickle Bill’s nose, triggering a gush of saliva in his starved mouth: an offering to soothe an enraged god’s temper. Taking a seat across from Bill, Holden watches with satisfaction as Bill impatiently grabs his fork and waits for Holden’s cue to commence.

He allows the ritual to begin: “Bon Appetit.”

Ravenous, Bill digs in, twirling long yellow strings speckled with green around the cutlery and pushing it into his mouth. He chews. And a groan leaves him. The sound travels across the few inches between them and buries itself warmly in Holden’s chest. Happy with his work, he follows his partner’s example.

“I won’t let it go, Bill. This is an incredible opportunity we shouldn’t miss. I honestly don’t know why you’re throwing such a fit about it,” he says between bites.

Too intoxicated on perfect, filling food, the statement, meant to rouse a reaction, barely gets a twitch. Bill takes a swing of his – Holden’s abandoned – beer and grants him a smile, stuck somewhere between genuine and sarcastic.

“Wouldn’t be you if you didn’t.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know,” he begins and pops a roasted tomato into his mouth, savoring the sweetly sour taste on his tongue. It reminds him of the person across him, watching him with a mixture of annoyance and curiosity at what Bill has to say. “I’d be worried if you wouldn’t pursue it. It’s unlike you to let things simply go. Not tonight, though, sweetheart.”

Holden’s eye twitches. Bill seldom uses monikers, even less so endearments, and knows how they never fail to make Holden feel appreciated, loved, special. Damn him. The performance is over, the smoke has cleared. No reward for the priest, not today.

“How was golf?” Holden asks, defeated, recognizing defeat, yet head unbowed.

Bill smiles and pats his hand, an amused glint in his light blue eyes.

The discussion is soon forgotten amongst a detailed retelling of Bill’s evening at the golf course and the bar: uneventful, worse than usual and Harry, whom Bill met at the 15th hole and spent the rest of the night with, had been complaining about his upcoming knee surgery.

Standing side by side to wash and dry the dishes, the conversation naturally flows from one topic to another, until Holden stops at the lengthy mention of Harry, his soapy hands gripping the sink as he squints at Bill.

“Harry? The guy that tried to hit on you? You spent the evening with him?”

“He didn’t try to hit on me, gimme that plate.”

Holden gives him the plate. “He did. ‘Oh wow, Bill, is that your gun? Did you ever have to shoot it? I bet being an agent is a dangerous occupation.’”

Stunned at the ridiculous voice coming out of Holden’s mouth, Bill takes a moment to process what has been said and how it’s been said.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“If you say so,” Holden shrugs and finishes the dishes, pulling the bright pink gloves from his fingers and putting them over the dish rack to dry. He tells himself he is not jealous of Harry, of all people _not_ Harry, and walks past Bill to get ready for bed. If he brushes his teeth a bit more forceful than necessary than Bill needn’t know. He’s certainly not telling him as they both settle underneath the covers.

Tonight, the light is immediately turned off, neither of them awake enough to read a book or do some last-minute planning. And yet, Holden is not tired enough to sleep. He turns his head, the motion rustling his pillow and regards Bill’s profile, the slow rise and fall of his broad chest, in the semi-darkness his eyes have adjusted to.

Driven by fast blooming need (and jealousy) he rolls to his side and creeps his hand along the mattress until it can push underneath the sheets. Soon his fingertips find clothed flesh and long to leave this last, annoyingly obstructive barrier behind.

“Holden?” Bill grouses, still awake, too, but considerably closer to sleep.

Holden doesn’t answer and instead rolls closer to push his nose into the vulnerable, shaved side of Bill’s neck, lips grazing softly against the slow beat of his heart.

“Hmm, you smell good,” he whispers softly. “Clean. How well did you wash yourself?” The pulse underneath his lips jumps, the first sign that Bill is not as sleepy as he seems to be. His arm winds around Bill’s hip, thumb brushing along an exposed stretch of skin and leaving goosebump in its wake. Bill turns his head to search and find Holden’s lips, pressing them together in a warm kiss, holding the promise of more with the way he gently sucks on them.

“Not well enough for what you have in mind.”

Holden hums in disappointment, his hand finally creeping underneath Bill’s shirt to caress his heated skin.

“Shame,” he says as he takes the final step and rolls onto a huffing Bill. “But I’m sure I’ll find another way to entertain myself.” He catches Bill’s mouth in a hungry kiss, opening Bill’s mouth with a flick of his tongue, tasting toothpaste and mouthwash, while he can feel the same growing need against his belly and Bill’s hand holding his hips in a fierce grip. In a faint imitation of what’s to come he sucks on Bill’s tongue and releases it gently, sucking excess saliva off Bill's lips.

“You’re filthy,” Bill mutters, the hands at Holden’s hips moving upward as Holden moves downwards. He pushes the shirt up Bill’s chest to nose at his chest hair; to paint his pale flesh with colorless kisses, making his way further down to his destination. “About to get filthier,” he says, kissing Bill’s stomach, above his groin, earning him a hitched moan and Bill’s hand in his hair, pushing him to where he wants him most.

*

True to his word, Holden doesn’t keep quiet on the topic for too long. The next day, as they’re driving to work, he goes straight for the jugular. Trapped in a metal box together, there’s no way for Bill to avoid the conversation lest he play deaf. Unfortunately, Holden could talk a dead man back to live if he ever started to question the very nature of death and needed a first-hand account.

“Have you thought about it?” he asks, glancing at Bill from the corner of his eye.

Meanwhile Bill decides to play dumb as he lights a cigarette: “About what?”

“Interviewing this guy.”

“No,” Bill retorts, taking a leisurely drag of his cigarette, discarding ashes out the window into the early morning summer breeze. He’s pushing Holden’s buttons. On purpose, as Holden angrily notes.

“Why not?”

“When should I have contemplated your idea? During dinner? While we were sucking each other off? In my dreams? No, Holden, I didn’t think about it. And I don’t wanna think about it. In fact, I’ve been thinking about the million other cases on my table. Cases that need our immediate help. I don’t know why you’re so hellbent on talking to _this_ particular psycho. He’s been caught, thank God, so there’s nothing for us to do.” Bill ends his tirade with another, pointed, drag on his cigarette.

Holden regards the scowl on his face with one of his own. “No need to get so angry. You don’t hear me yelling about your lack of initiative.”

“Oh, please, you’re not baiting me with that.”

“Fine. I’m going to ask Wendy. I’m sure she’ll agree with me.”

“You do that,” Bill sighs and ends this line of conversation. The silence between them only lasts as long as Bill needs to finish his cigarette. In his head he’s already going through the day’s agenda, sorting priorities and mentally rehearsing the class he’ll have to teach later in the afternoon. The thought triggers the question whether Holden had remembered to prepare his after he got sidetracked by yesterday’s news. Just because it’s his prerogative to waste his time salivating over murderous minds, doesn’t mean he’s allowed to let down their students. Students they desperately need if they ever want to retire, knowing the unit is in good hands. 

“Did you grade the essays?”

“Of course I did. While you were golfing with _Harry_.” He adds the last information as a way to fuck with Bill, but all the other man does is throwing the cigarette out the window to pat Holden’s leg like he would a well-trained puppy. Holden swats at the offending hand and tries to hide his smile as Bill bursts into laughter.

The cluster of buildings forming the Quantico offices and the academy come into view shortly after their friendly banter. Quietly, Bill finds a parking spot near the main entrance in the early morning deserted lot. They don’t loiter around; as soon as Bill has cut off the engine, they both jump out of the car with their briefcases in hand, ready for today’s work. Entering the foyer, both of them extend a friendly nod to Gary and Doyle, the two guards on duty sitting in the guardhouse.

The elevator is quick to arrive with barely any personnel in need of it. No matter how many years have passed since their move from the basement to one of the upper floors, they still marvel at the fact that the elevator is taking them upwards, not downwards, where their work is seen and acknowledged. Holden can’t contain the satisfied smile or the surge of pride at the thought of what they have accomplished. Examining his feelings closer, he doesn’t want to. He’ll need it to convince the team that this new guy is worth interviewing.

With a shrill ring their floor is announced and as they step into the BSU, they can already see a cluster of people through the door of the conference’s room, huddled like bees in a hive around the TV mounted on the wall. Bill and Holden glance at each other and take hurried steps towards the door, which is held open by the metal door stopper. From within the room, the sound of the news can be heard, relaying the same information which have been gnawing Holden’s consciousness since yesterday evening. On the quadratic blocky screen, nothing Holden doesn’t already know, can be seen.

“Police in Wisconsin this morning are investigating a grisly discovery in a Milwaukee apartment. The discovery of pieces of bodies. Police found parts of as many as 15 human bodies inside. Police are questioning thirty-one-year-old Jeffrey Dahmer who lives in the apartment. The Milwaukee newspaper is reporting the man has confessed to killing at least eleven people.”

The program cuts from the scene of the crime to the newsroom, showing the woman’s face who has been informing the country about the events in Milwaukee. “In an unprecedented news conference, the police chief, medical examiner and district attorney joined in a public statement.” Switching again, the aforementioned three elderly men are seen sitting at a long table talking about the state of the investigation. 

Stepping closer to the crowd of colleagues, Holden can make out Wendy’s straight, chin-length coiffure and fashionably grey pencil dress somewhere to the right. Her face, gracefully aged, displays her thought-wrinkled forehead. Sidestepping Bill, he shuffles over to her and taps her shoulder. She turns around and seeing who it is, grants him a small smile.

“I was following the news all evening. You think he’s worth looking at?” Holden asks her and before she can retort adds, “I think he is.”

Wendy bites the corner of her lip, looks back at the TV, then back at Holden, then at Bill.

“Let’s talk about this in my office,” she whispers and begins making her way out of the crowded conference room. Gregg hasn’t arrived yet, but Jim is watching the exchange from the other side of the room with his hands on his hips. Holden catches his eyes to extend an invitation to the clandestine proceedings in the other room. And turning to Bill, Holden mouths ‘I win’ before brushing his shoulder and receiving a playful jolt in return.

Being the last to enter Wendy’s roomy corner office, Bill closes the door. Wendy is standing behind her desk, leaning her hand and her petite weight on the table scattered with files and tapes. Jim is taking a seat in front of it, smoothing his tie as he settles into the semi-comfortable chairs, Holden is about to lean against the wall opposite from the desk, his hands already buried in his pockets, leaving the other chair to Bill. Small blessings.

Sitting down, Bill pulls his pack of Marlboro and lighter from his coat pocket to push it into his mouth. With the cigarette clamped between his lips, he is the one to open the discussion, “It hasn’t even been twenty-four hours and Holden is already obsessed. Please knock that nonsense out of him and tell him there’s no reason to cream his pants.”

“I’m right behind you.”

Jim barks out a low laugh at the exchange of blows but doesn’t say anything otherwise. Wendy purses her lips, wrinkling her nose. “Sorry, Bill. Could be something. I wouldn’t discard it so easily.”

“Told you.” Shaking his head and rolling his eyes, Bill turns to look at Holden, practically glowing in triumph. He makes sure the disapproval is oozing out of every pore as he turns back to Wendy. “Really? What is there to gain we haven’t already established? He killed a few guys and stored their bodies in his apartment. So what? Plenty of others have done the same thing. We already talked to Gacy. Jim, back me up here.”

But Jim only shrugs, intertwining his fingers in his lap. “You’re the boss and I’ll accept whatever decision you’ll make. But if you’re asking me – I’m on their side.”

“Thanks, Jim,” Wendy says and turns her attention to Bill, “Think about it. Yes, there are patterns of behavior, but every killer is still unique. At the very least consider the option for classroom purposes. I say we wait until we know more, then contact Milwaukee police. Better yet, we wait until he’s properly imprisoned and has nothing but time on his hands.”

“You really want to wait that long?” Holden interjects, moving from his position against the wall to stand next to Bill, putting a hand on his shoulder. He squeezes gently, in glee and condolence in equal measures.

“Can’t Jim and Gregg do it at least?” Bill sighs. The moment Holden opens his mouth to cry an indignant, “What? No way!”, the phone rings.

The three men in the room watch as Wendy picks up her phone and greets the person on the other end of the line, telling them to forward the call. Her hand comes to rest on the end of the receiver.

“Speak of the devil,” she whispers mischievously. A second later her attention is turned back to the phone. “Yes, this is Dr.Carr, Behavioral Science Unit, Quantico. Listen, my team is in the room with me. As it is, we were talking about your case. I’m going to put you on loudspeaker, Detective Kennedy.” The button pushed, his voice echoes inside her office in affirmation and thanks.

“Good morning, Detective Kennedy,” Bill says, extinguishing his cigarette in the ashtray on Wendy’s desk. “How can we help?”

“Well. To be honest, we’re not sure. My head is still reeling from listening to Mr. Dahmer’s confession all night long. An assessment of his mental state would be a good start, I suppose.”

Even though the detective can’t see Bill, he nods. “I understand. You’re never prepared for this kind of stuff.” 

The other man gives a humorless laugh.

“Wait a second – he gave a full confession? Just like that? No lawyer?”

“Yep. Said quote, unquote ‘I’ve created this horror and it only makes sense I do everything to put an end to it’. Guys, I have pages upon pages of confession and a thick folder of evidence. I’m sick to my stomach and dead tired.” Somewhere in the background someone calls for the detective, temporarily guiding his focus away from the phone call. He excuses himself. While he’s gone, glances are exchanged in the Quantico office, each of them contemplating what ‘pages upon pages of confession’ might mean and what has made the good detective sick to his stomach.

“Sorry ‘bout that. You can imagine everyone is a bit flustered this morning and the Milwaukee Journal won’t give it a rest either. Listen, uhm, would you mind taking a look and give your opinion? We already contacted your guys here in Milwaukee, they told me to get you on board.”

“Why are you consulting the FBI? Has this become a federal issue?” Bill asks, eyebrows knitted above his pale blue eyes.

“Uh, yeah. He admitted to killing a, uhm, wait a second, Steven Hicks in Ohio back in ’78 and many of his other victims were Chicago residents. We also need some help with identification, as you can imagine.”

Holden, whose entire being is almost vibrating with energized interest, leans towards the table, “What did he confess to?”

There is a short silence and a long sigh, “I don’t even know where to begin. Let me send you the file. Have a look for yourself.” 

It takes the fax machine and the officer in Milwaukee close to an hour to transmit the accurate scope of events the media has only partially been reporting on. In the meantime, their branch office in Milwaukee is called, information exchanged, their database combed through. As it turns out, mister Jeffrey Dahmer is no stranger to authorities. 

With his glasses perched on his nose, Bill sits in front of the computer (marvelous little machines) and looks at the digitized files, shaking his head at the history of criminal conducts. His eyes and mind are already dissecting the juiciest parts of text passages – all depicting a slow spiral into further escalations. He’s the picture-perfect model of all their theories. Alcoholism, discharge from the army, all leading up to his first criminal records: probation for pedophilic activities, and now serial killer.

Bill mutters to himself, expressing his disapproval with an ‘unbelievable’ under his breath.

Right then, Holden walks through the previously ajar door, carrying a bundle of papers. Naturally, as if this was his office and not Bill’s, he plops down on his desk, waving the papers like a delicious snack in front of his partner’s face.

His irritation only skin-deep with the interruption, he discards his glasses on the desk and glares at Holden. “Get your ass off my desk.”

“I seem to recall you liking my ass on your desk,” he whispers conspiratorially in a suggestive manner, leaning towards Bill, eyes reflecting an especially pleasurable memory. For emphasis, he wiggles his eyebrows. The reminder of what had transpired shortly after the move from bottom to top and into the new office space, fights his way, without much resistance, to the forefront of Bill’s mind, glittering like a newly stamped penny:

_Roaming through Bill’s office like a panther in a jungle, or more like a cat marking their territory, Holden takes stock of the printer, the file cabinet with deliberate slow steps. Bill watches from the doorway as Holden extracts one hand from his pockets and brushes his fingertips like a loving caress over the wood of the desk._

_“It’s nice,” he says as he turns around, something dangerous, something foolish in his eyes. Bill can’t resist. And who can blame him? Their relationship is still in its infant stages, everything Holden says or does_ _earns_ _one reaction or another – Bill’s eyes constantly drawn to him. In anticipation of unspoken words put to action, Bill quietly closes the door and walks into the dimly lit room under Holden’s predatory gaze. His body turns towards the source of his desire and easily presses against Bill’s as he’s corralled against the desk inside the cage of Bill’s arms. As the back of his knees bump the polished wood, he sits down, arms sneaking around Bill’s neck. There’s no trace of regret or shame on his face._

_“Are we finally going to christen the place?”_

_“Do you want another censure from OPR? Or worse, to lose your job?”_

_“Don’t be difficult. Shut up and kiss me.”_

_Not in the mood to deny himself the pleasure of physical intimacy any longer, his mouth finds Holden’s in a dispositive yet gentle manner, basking in the newly acquired sensations of soft lips against his, and a hot-wet tongue touching uncharted parts of his body for the first time. Nancy had never kissed with him tongue; he had never dared to._

_Guided by the swooping feeling in his belly, his hands move to Holden’s hips, thumbs rubbing precariously close to his groin. He teases along the seam of his pants and up, where he is straining against the trapping confines of stiff fabric._

_With a groan, Holden breaks free from the kiss. His lust-drunk eyes find Bill’s in the scarce distance between them._

_“Don’t you think it's time you face the consequences of your actions and do something about that?”_

_The next sound leaving his pretty pale throat is less dignified than the one before as Bill plants a hand against his chest and pushes him down to the - as of yet - empty desk. Bill does come face to face with the consequence of his actions and has no qualms to pay the price; Holden, hard and leaking, in his mouth._

With the erotic memory conjured, his dick makes itself known with a few pointed pulsing shocks. Fighting fire with another kind of fire, Bill gets his mind out of the gutter and stares at the monitor with its black and white testimony of what they’re about to discuss.

Standing, Bill decides he will not grant an answer to Holden’s indecent, shameless demonstration of workplace harassment. But then thinks otherwise. Giving up would mean another point for Holden on their invisible tally. So he quickly overrules the decision in his head. 

“That was before you once again got your way by sheer luck, stubborn knucklehead.” He rounds the table, picking up his own research from the printer, purposefully ignoring Holden’s hungry eyes following his every move until Bill reaches the door. Holden takes it as his cue to hop down from the table and trail after Bill. “Don’t be like that. No one likes a sore loser who resorts back to insults in a stunning display of lack of wit.”

Bill takes a special kind of pleasure from the way Holden nearly breaks into a jog to keep up with his long, fast strides. If it really came down to it, Holden would be able to run past him and stop him in his tracks, but the unwritten rules of their little game forbid them from doing so. 

“It’s not an insult if it’s the truth. And it is. You’re one of the smartest people I know, but sometimes your stupidity knows no bounds. Must I remind you of Kemper?”

Opening the door to the conference room, television turned off and devoid of anyone not privy to the following conversation, Holden mutters, “Low blow, Bill. Low fucking blow.”

Gregg, who has finally arrived, gives them a little wave in greeting. They retort with a simultaneous “Morning” and take a seat at the oval table making up half of the conference room. Next to him is Jim, already engrossed in a copy of the police file, across from Wendy, also absorbed in her literature. Bill and Holden take a seat next to her and next to each other and thus catch their attention.

Wendy looks up from the files with a deep sigh and turns to Bill. “Have you read this?”

“Nope. Been researching our newest poster boy in our database, though.”

She lends her copy to Bill, while Holden pushes one across the table to Gregg. Opening the dossier, both men act in a familiar fashion to what stares them in the face. Gregg turns white as a sheet, Bill let’s out a very quiet, very shocked, “What the fuck?”

“He took photos,” Holden explains, as if the evidence of that gruesome fact wasn’t already known. As if Bill isn’t confronted with polaroids of dead men, men gutted like hunted animals or bent into unnatural positions with their heads missing and their chests thrust towards the ceiling. “A lot of photos. That’s how they caught him.” He pulls another photograph from the dossier. That of a black, very alive, man. “Tracy Edwards was the one that got away. Dahmer was about to kill him when he was able to free himself. He stumbled out into the street, handcuffs dangling from his wrist, and ran until he saw police. Mueller and Rauth, the two officers on duty, followed him back to the apartment. In their own words ‘they only wanted to advise on a domestic dispute’. Dahmer let them into the apartment. They asked him for the keys, and he pointed to the bedroom. Mueller went to look for them, peered into an open drawer and found these.”

Tasting bile in the back of his throat, Bill thumbs through the images and stops at –

“Is this a skeleton? A whole-ass human skeleton?”

“And severed heads and hands and. Penises,” Holden adds with a slight tremor in his voice and a worried gaze. “That’s not the worst of it.”

Bill keeps thumbing through the stack of photographs until he reaches the photos taken of the crime scene. The first and second are pictures of the living room: couch on the right side, chair and table on the left littered with tools, various other furniture, fish tank across the door, pictures of nude males in athletic poses on the walls, scattered beer cans and cigarette butts and other trash. The third of a blue drum in the corner of the room. The fourth of a freezer, the fifth of the little kitchenette, neither clean nor dirty, looking inhabited with plates and pots on the stove and the sink and the fridge next to it and the sixth… the sixth, the seventh, the eight freeze the blood in his veins at the same time his heart goes into palpitations inside his contracting ribcage.

Stored body parts – torsos, hands, heads, organs in a jar, blood - in a horrendous spectacle of one of the worst taboos a human can commit. “No,” Bill whispers, shocked at his own perception. 

“Yes,” Holden says, searching for something in the file. “He admitted to eating parts of them. He said, ‘the bicep was big, and he wanted to try it’.” Pointing at the pictures Bill is looking at he says, “Looking at this, it was more than a few biceps.” 

A swift exploring gaze around the table reveals Gregg on the verge of throwing up; Jim disgusted and close behind.

Wendy is the only one who still hasn’t lost her composure: “We should take a few minutes to read his confession and gather our thoughts. Judging by his desire to document his kills and the cannibalistic practices, there’s a lot of ground to cover. If we are to interview him, we should know what awaits us.”

Bill looks at her with skepticism, perturbed by what he’s seen, “Do we ever?”

Her eyes jump between his, silently communicating her own repulsion.

Doing as he’s told, Bill, together with the others, buries his head in the gruesome details of what the media has yet to discover. It’s only the beginning of the investigation, but Bill is convinced that this is far from being over. And that reporters will have a field day the more they will sniff out of the case. 

Holden observes that despite his initial inhibitions, Bill is reaching for a pen and notepad conveniently positioned in the middle of the table and begins taking notes. Without interrupting the intense atmosphere of concentration in the room, he, too, goes back to reading; reaching his arm across the file in front of Bill with a muttered apology, he grapes and eventually sifts through the documents Bill has brought with him.

Dahmer’s botched stint with the military is the first thing greeting him:

_Private Dahmer has had several alcohol incidents and is not willing to control his alcohol intake._

_I declare PFC Dahmer as a failure to the active and follow-up phase of the ADAPCP._

And after that, page after page of counseling, medical examinations, and proven misconduct. Hidden among the written down journey of alcoholism and his failure to perform his duties is another, more interesting fact – he hadn’t finished the eight-week course but instead had been transferred to the Army Hospital to be trained as a medical specialist. Coincidence or skillfully orchestrated? Holden browses further ahead to Dahmer’s criminal record outside of the military: public drunkenness, lewd behavior in front of a bunch of people, two children, as well as the sexual exploitation through enticement of one by taking photos of the boy in sexual poses. _Why children?_ Holden wonders. _None of the victims in the photographs are children._ Trial and error, to see what he could get away with? Did he try to get caught and thrown into prison? Was he actually craving a disciplinary hand, and this was the soundless cry for help? Why mess up his career at the military then?

Bill, taking a deep, unsteady breath and pulling his glasses from his nose to rub jittery fingers over his tired eyes, catapults him from his thoughts back into the room.

“Amazing, isn’t it?” Holden asks, trying to catch Bill’s eyes.

The question prompts Gregg and Jim to look up from their dossiers and Bill to turn to him with an incredulous expression. “I wouldn’t call it amazing, Holden. Fucking crazy, yes. Sad for another. Jesus Christ, think before shit like that comes out of your mouth.”

This time, the anger is not shallow, not the way his brows meet in the middle of his face, or the way his hands ball into fists atop the table.

Holden blinks, annoyed that his statement is misconstrued, “I didn’t mean the homicides, I meant his willingness to talk about it.”

“Tell that to Detectives Kennedy and Murphy.”

Before the situation can escalate into uncomfortable territory, Wendy rises from her seat to get a big white poster and some pens stashed in a cupboard in the corner of the room.

“We need to talk about the multiple paraphilias at play. Especially if we want to give Detective Kennedy an answer to the state of our subject’s mind.” Rolling the pristine poster across the table and uncapping the blue pen she continues, “We won't be able to assess anything without an interview, but I suggest we start by categorizing our usual way.” She stops, all eyes drawn to her and her thoughtful face.

“Shall we begin?”


	2. Chapter 2

Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

July 26th, 1991

Their rented silver Chevrolet crawls along the heated asphalt of Milwaukee while its residents walk along the sidewalks or drive their own cars to work, to run errands or simply visit friends and loved ones. Watching them pass by, Holden thinks, _some of these families will_ never _get their loved ones back_. And despite the sorrow and the shock the city has found itself in, life goes on. 

Bill curses; a quiet, “Shit” leaving his mouth as they reach their destination, already catching sight of the shark tank from afar. Outside the precinct, the media circus lies in wait, hungry for any and all news of their Monster of Milwaukee. 

At the unexpected exclamation leaving Bill’s mouth, Holden glances at him, curious and concerned. Bill is nervous. For whatever reason, he is nervous. A phenomenon which hasn’t happened in a long time.

“What’s the matter?” he asks softly, keeping his eyes on Bill’s stormy face.

“Are you kidding? You’re seeing this, right?”

Humoring him, Holden turns to look at the ravenous reporters, who by now have spotted the car rolling towards their location and observe the arrival with anticipatory gazes.

“That’s not what I meant. You seem tense. Why?” They both know the crowd, Bill is carefully maneuvering around, isn’t the real issue. Ignoring the screaming questions and the flashes of cameras, his mouth is set in a grim, thin line, which means he’s contemplating how to answer Holden’s innoxious question. The answer doesn’t come forth until the car is parked, and Bill can rub a weary hand over his forehead.

“I’m fine,” he says, turning to Holden and catching his eyes. “Let’s get this over with.”

The half-hearted answer is more than unsatisfactory. But Holden doesn’t get a chance to dig deeper into Bill’s reluctance. With a grunt, betraying his age, Bill exits the car and pulls his cigarettes from his pocket.

Holden isn’t convinced that this will go as smoothly, or quickly, as Bill hopes. If they end up being asked to evaluate Mr. Dahmer’s state of mind during the killings, one interview won’t be enough to establish a baseline.

Carrying their leather briefcases, containing the multitude of crimes committed by the man they are about to question, they walk to the entrance of the Milwaukee police station all the while ignoring the shouting throng. 

A young, blonde woman, who is sitting behind the front desk, jumps from her seat when they approach to show their badges. She excuses herself to her contrarily older colleague.

“This way, Agents Tench and Ford. I’m, uhm, I’m sure you’ve heard all about it, haven’t you?” Daring a peek through the glass doors of the station she adds, “They won’t leave. The Journal has the decency to call, but not them.”

Taking short strides on her heeled draped feet, she leads them away from the entrance and into the bowels of the precinct with the easiness and knowledge of a tour guide. “Homicide is on the second floor but they’re keeping him on the third. He, uhm, they’re afraid of, you know.”

They enter the elevator, and she pushes the button to the second floor with a manicured finger.

“What are they afraid of, Miss?” Holden asks for clarity.

“That he could make the other inmates nervous. Or, you know, that they make him nervous.”

Glad for the fact that she faces towards the doors, Holden turns his head to find Bill mirroring the gesture to look at him with an arched eyebrow, showing his confusion and skepticism.

As the elevator arrives on the second floor, the doors open to reveal a buzzing and bustling homicide department. The secretary begins leading them through the noise and hustle of the task force until she spots the person she was obviously looking for.

“Detective Kennedy,” she yells over the clamor of voices to be heard. 

A man in his forties with a brown bushy moustache approaches them, thanking the secretary with a soft-spoken, “Thanks, Lucy. Could you please ask Fred to get Dahmer into one of the interview rooms?”

After pleasantries are exchanged, she turns, says her goodbyes and, walking past Holden and Bill, disappears to follow her duty.

Meanwhile Detective Kennedy is extending his hand to shake first Bill’s and then Holden’s hand firmly. He’s trying to make himself smile but the corners of his mouth won’t reach his eyes. “Thank you for coming all the way out here.”

The detective has the appearance of someone who has been plagued by insomnia – dark circles underneath his red eyes, pale-yellow complexion. According to the file he hadn’t been the one to find the bodies but he’s one of two detectives tasked with speaking to their newly caught monster. The things he must have heard have obviously taken their toll.

“Shall we take a seat? Preferably somewhere quieter,” he says, indicating to a room at the other end of the open bullpen office room filled with officers. They stick out like a sore thumb, a quick look around reveals. Every pair of eyes is turned towards them as they follow Detective Kennedy to the unoccupied room.

The inside of the office is only marginally better than the outside. Voices and the usual precinct scenery cut through the door and the thin walls. Without speaking, Kennedy offers them two seats on one side of the table and takes a seat himself on the other.

“I’m really grateful you decided to come. We never had a case like this.”

Bill, who always had an easier time talking to the force and people in general, is the one to address Detective Kennedy first. “I’d like to say it gets easier but even we find ourselves surprised every time we talk to one of them.”

“Well, that gives me hope for my own sanity,” Kennedy jokes. “So, you’re familiar with the case?”

“As familiar as we can get without talking to him in person. We saw the evidence. And read your interview. Very extensive.”

Kennedy leans back in his chair with a deep, tired sigh. “I didn’t even ask him for all these details. He just kept talking. I couldn’t write with how fast the facts kept coming. I mean, uh, when we arrested him, we had no idea it would be this bad. After a while I asked Detective Murphy to join me and if we could record the conversation. It was just too much.” Kennedy rubs a hand over his face.

His body language makes Holden realize two things: for one, the man is not finished with his account and second, he’s glad he has someone to talk to. “Reuth and Mueller asked for a three day leave of absence. Chief didn’t grant it. Poor fuckers. The precinct, they...they’re trying to deal with it their own way. Keep making jokes, you know.”

Bill nods his head in understanding; he can imagine what kind of jokes a homosexual cannibal yield. “He’s cooperative then?”

“Depends,” Kennedy sighs again. “Until now, he wouldn’t talk to anyone but me. They’re trying to make a joke out of this, too. He heard them.”

“The jokes?” Bill asks in a gentle tone of voice.

“Hmhm,” Kennedy hums in the affirmative. “Wasn’t too happy about those. I had to go talk to him and calm him down. Then the Captain had to tell the department to shut their mouth. Jesus, can you imagine?” 

“It might sound strange, but yeah.”

Kennedy’s face lights up with a small smile. “You’ve probably seen worse.”

“Like I said, always new. Each of them is uncomfortable in their own way,” Bill iterates.

Kennedy loses himself to his own thoughts for a moment. At last he says, “Heard you spoke to Manson.”

“We did,” Holden interjects, for the first time during the conversation.

“I bet that was a singular experience.”

Holden thinks back to a spacious cell and a small man towering above them, Bill’s behavior, how stressed-out they both had been during that time. “You could say that. He tried to put the blame on anyone but himself.” 

Detective Kennedy doesn’t wait for the following silence to be longer than necessary. “Yeah this one doesn’t. Alright,” he says, heaving his tall, tired body out of the seat. “I’m guessing you already know what you’re going to ask Dahmer? Do you need any more information from me?”

At the prospect of finally meeting the already infamous inmate, Holden stands up with concealed exuberance, grabbing the suitcase he had deposited next to him in the process. “We have a standard questionnaire we use as a guideline,” he explains to Kennedy, who intently listens with arms crossed in front of his bulky physique.

Bill continues for clarification, “Sometimes a perpetrator doesn’t want to talk to us or tries to dish out some bullshit, in which case we need to find ways to make him talk. But as Agent Ford said, there are fixed questions which interest us the most.” 

Kennedy nods, then waves his hand in a circular gesture, indicating for them to go on.

“Upbringing, relationship with the parents, when he started fantasizing of killing someone, what his mental processes were while he was committing the crime, post-crime behavior, that kind of thing.”

“Do you mind if I join you?”

Caught off guard by the question, Holden is sure he can’t contain the surprise any better than if he had accidentally bumped his knee on the low coffee table in their living room. Battling with his own indecision, he looks over at Bill for guidance, who wears the same look of surprise on his face. He wrinkles his forehead the least possible amount and sees understanding and confirmation reflected in Bill’s eyes. Completely in sync they turn back to the detective.

Bill is the one to explain: “I understand your desire to see how we work. It’s commendable, really, but we want a real, authentic conversation with him. We need to establish rapport. Not that you don’t have any with him, but what we’re doing is a bit different than what you guys are doing. We don’t need information from him to identify the bodies, we need information to understand his thought processes. If it’s any consolation, we’re recording the interviews, so you may listen to them when we’re finished.” 

Holden can see that the detective accepts the reasoning without push-back. Taking a deep breath, which he releases through his nose, he uncrosses his arms and begins walking towards the door. 

“I better introduce you.”

The atmosphere as they are being led to the third floor can only be described as eerie and so tense, a knife could cut through it. Just as on the second floor, the officers and detectives on duty once again watch them as they make their way to the interview room at the end of a long gray hallway on the third floor; just as on the second floor, they are acutely aware of who currently resides within these walls. 

In only a matter of days Jeffrey Dahmer has managed to enthrall a whole precinct, nay, a whole city. Where before he went unnoticed and undisturbed, people now couldn’t get enough of him, it seemed. Trying not to be offended on behalf of a serial killer, Holden pushes the disappointment and anger about bad police work due to uncouth prejudices deep down where it won’t hinder his work. 

Here, in the eye of the hurricane, Holden feels for the first time that this case will haunt the city for years to come. A few days prior Bill had alluded to a second Gacy. Holden also feels like he must concur. 

Finally, the sound of their footfalls come to a stop. At long last, they have arrived at the interview room; the last existing barrier, beyond which their newest subject waits for another kind of interrogation altogether. 

“He’s been told you guys are coming to talk to him, uhm, but I think it might be a good idea if I prepare him myself.”

“Sure,” Bill nods and takes a step back to let the other man into the room.

While the detective enters the room, Holden inclines his head sideways to catch a glimpse of Dahmer, but only sees the back of his blonde head before the door closes again. He averts his gaze, focusing on the nervous motions of Bill’s hand – his fingers rubbing together in small circles.

“Withdrawal?” Holden jokes, desperate to lighten the suspenseful mood and make Bill smile. He doesn’t achieve the former and only ineptly achieves the latter. The small uptilt of a corner of Bill’s mouth is all Holden gets for his valiant attempt. 

Suddenly the door opens and closes just as quickly, forcing Holden and Bill to take a step back. Detective Kennedy regards them one last time, wishes them good luck and leaves, promising them he’ll be waiting in the break room.

“Oh, one last thing,” he says, turning to look at them, “Offer him something to drink and if you have some cigarettes on you, those too.” 

Holden is tempted to tell the fatigued detective to take a nap while he waits. He watches Kennedy’s retreating back for a second longer before turning to Bill, whose eyes are already on Holden. “Ready?” Holden takes a deep breath, touches the familiar small, almost invisible pill case in his trousers pocket and nods.

Without further ado, Bill opens the door to the surprisingly spacey interview room.

Dahmer’s back is turned towards the door. He doesn’t turn around as they enter the grey-walled, windowless room. His hands, chained together and to the table, are in his lap, his head bowed in an imitation of demure prayer, the very opposite of an imposing presence. Raising an eyebrow, Bill turns to Holden, who quietly closes the door, and walks towards the middle of the room, towards the place Jeffrey Dahmer awaits them. The soles of his shoes echo back at him. 

Dahmer looks up as Bill comes into his line of sight. His blue eyes, framed by huge quadratic glasses, follow him lifelessly; his gaunt face, easily describable as handsome and inconspicuous (the kind of face prompting statements of disbelief that someone like that could do such horrible things), shows no sign of joy, is almost bored. Only as Holden joins Bill opposite from Dahmer, can Bill see a change in his demeanor – a spark of incipient interest. The change leads in turn to a change in Bill as well. Where he was simply annoyed at the prospect of talking to this guy, he now feels fiery fury in the pit of his stomach, a sense of protection he hasn’t felt in a very, _very_ long time.

The volume of his feelings is hard to control with the way Dahmer’s eyes are fixated on Holden. What about his partner appeals to someone like Dahmer? Someone who had raped and killed men as young as fourteen years old as the as of now identified victims have revealed. Holden is in his forties. He appears youthful, Bill has to admit, and takes good care of his body, but he still displays tell-tale signs of his age.

Trying not to think of the polaroid pictures, swallowing the globe of anger in his throat, Bill pushes one of the chairs away from the table with a scraping sound to sit down, taking up a casual position with one leg thrown over the other. 

The other man is a stark, vibrant spectacle against the backdrop of grey concrete, like an oversaturated picture.

He catches Dahmer’s eyes and begins talking to him, “Mr. Dahmer – Jeff, is that alright?”

Dahmer shrugs his shoulders, then nods.

“Can we get you something to drink, Jeff?” Holden asks and receives another nod.

“Coffee, if that is okay. Black,” Dahmer says in a calm voice. _Still waters_ , Bill thinks, _still waters run deep indeed_. 

“Sure. I’ll get you one.”

They both watch as Holden leaves the room.

“I take it Detective Kennedy told you who we are?”

“Yes, uhm. You’re from the FBI.”

“A special division, the BSU – Behavioral Science Unit. We talk to violent offenders such as yourself,” Bill pauses, lets that sink in for a brief moment, then adds, “Men who committed multiple murders. We’d like to talk to you and find out what you were thinking before, while and after you committed these crimes. What compelled you to murder seventeen people.”

Dahmer’s facial features stay dead as he answers: “I don’t know how much help I will be. I’ve never understood these, uhm, desires myself.” 

Before Bill is given the time to carry on, the door opens, and Holden walks back into the room with three cups of coffee, putting them on the table slowly and carefully. Bill, who can’t deny _his_ desire for a smoke any longer, pulls them out of his pocket and sees a sign of life in Dahmer’s eyes he hasn’t been able to detect before.

“Want one?” he offers and after receiving another quiet affirmation, pulls one out and gives it to the man opposite from him with slow movements. Dahmer takes it, his hands remarkably clean. Bill waits for him to push the cigarette between his lips before he leans over the table and lights it with a scrape of his lighter. Dahmer doesn’t look at him, not once, during the series of actions. 

Bill wonders how aware Dahmer is of the barter - who is taking a drag, visibly savoring the taste of nicotine in the back of his throat and exhales the smoke through his nose, scratching it afterwards with the short nail on his left thumb. 

The combined smoke of their cigarettes dances in the air between them. Is Dahmer’s composure simply a ploy? Or does the man in front of him not feel the graveness of the situation? 

“I just told Jeff what we’re going to talk about. He said he doesn’t know how much help he will be. He doesn’t understand these desires himself. You think we can assist with that?” Bill says, his eyes jumping between Dahmer and Holden, providing an entry point for the latter. 

“First of all, Jeff,” Holden begins, sitting down and intertwining his hands atop the table. “Do you mind if we record this?” Dahmer scrutinizes Holden, takes another drag, thinks.

“No, it’s alright, I guess. What for?”

As Holden leans down to retrieve the case file and tape recorder from his bag, he answers, “Makes it easier for us to review the conversation. Some of it would also be used for teaching purposes.” Putting the small recorder on the table, he says, “Is that still okay with you, Jeff?”

Dahmer nods and grabs the paper cup to take a sip of his coffee. Holden presses the play button, stating the date, the time and the people present, then continues, more to Dahmer than the recorder: 

“This is an unusual situation for us as well. A lot of the time we talk to offenders who are already in prison and whose insights cannot be used against them in a parole hearing.

We’re here to talk to you and hear your side of the story, but we have to inform you that what you say could be used against you.”

“I admitted to killing those men. I’m guilty, charged and I intend to plead guilty on any further charges.”

Bill tilts his head, curious about Dahmer’s own admission of guilt even if he is trying to distance himself from it at the same time by saying _those men._ “Your lawyer okay with that?”

Dahmer eyes look at him, poignantly and earnest, “I deserve worse than prison for what I did.”

“That’s a very noble thing of you to say,” Holden continues. Bill’s eyes slide to Holden for a split second. “We don’t want to start by talking about the killings, though. If it’s alright with you, we’d like to start by asking about your childhood.”

“Uh, okay.” 

With focused intensity, Holden opens the folder in front of him.

“You grew up in Ohio, is that correct?”

“Yes, we moved there when I was..uh…five or six. I think.”

“Did you like it?”

A pregnant silence settles between them.

Holden keeps speaking, “We used to move a lot when I was younger. Lived here for a small period of time. I know how jarring that can be. Being pushed from one place to another. What was your relationship with your parents growing up?”

After a while Dahmer admits, “When I think back to what it was like, the first thing coming to my mind is …how unhappy I was.”

“Unhappy? How so?”

“My mother had been in and out of mental institutions for half of my childhood, for uhm for trying to kill herself among other things. And my father had to, he had to take care of her. There wasn’t any time to attend to...”

“That must have been tough. Only child?”

“No.”

“How many siblings are there?”

“Just one. Uhm, six years younger. Actually, we moved when he was born.”

“That so? Tell me about it.”

“When my brother is born, she lets me choose the name… and being six I am convinced things will get better. That we would be a family, but it only gets worse. Once David was born, they both lost interest in me. I was free to do whatever I wanted. I guess most children enjoy this kind of freedom, but I, uh didn’t know what to do with myself.

They never abused me. They say people like me exist because they get molested by someone. That’s what makes them become homosexual. That never was in my case. I wasn’t. Not by my parents or anyone else.”

 _Homosexuals_ . _People like me._ Bill doesn’t want to think about the implications, how his heart is speeding up and tunnel vision sets in until all he can perceive is Dahmer - _people like us_. 

“You were never a victim of child abuse?”

“No. So it just seemed to be inborn whether that’s true or not. I don’t know. But that’s the way it seems to me.”

Detective Kenney, the transcriptions, can’t do Jeffrey Dahmer justice. Even though he presented himself as standoffish and aloof at the beginning, he really has no problem giving away private details. How true and accurate they are remains to be seen. 

Trying to confront everything that has been said in his accommodating statement, Holden sticks with his descriptions of childhood. That Dahmer has touched upon his homosexuality is mentally noted for later use.

“So what did you do with all this free time?”

Dahmer bites his lips, the first sign that he’s nervous about what he has to say.

“You really want to know that? It’s kind of crude.”

“Yeah, Jeff. We’d like to know.”

“Well, I, uh…I used to, uhm, disembowel dead animals.”

“Oh? Why did you kill and dissect them? Did it make you feel good? In control?”

“No. No…I, it was roadkill. I never killed them.”

“Alright. You went searching for roadkill?”

“Right.”

“And what for?”

“I wanted to know what their insides looked like, the inner workings of their bodies. I...I also skinned them.”

“When was that? When did you start doing that?”

“I don’t, uh, recall. I was very young when I started.”

“So after you dissected them, what did you do?”

“I built a, in the forest behind the house, I built a little cemetery for them. I’d bury them after I got what I wanted. I would, uhm,” he stops, glances at the cassette going around and round in its black recording device. “I take the parts which interest me the most, put them in jars and store them in the tool shed.”

“And your parents didn’t mind?”

“No, they weren’t aware, I think. My father encouraged me. One day I asked him how to preserve the bones. I think, as a chemist he must know how to do it. He gives me this set a few days later, tells me how to bleach and preserve bones. I don’t tell him about the obsessive thoughts, and he doesn’t ask.”

Dahmer stops his account to drink some of the coffee, while Bill and Holden are struck speechless by the plethora of information they are given, digesting what they are being told. Bill looks at his notepad and furiously scribbles down his thoughts – _child neglect, animal cruelty?, genetic psychosis? Early childhood interest in viscera._

Holden continues, “How long did you do this for?”

“Up until I found this dog. I, I find the dog at the side of the road. Bring him home. Begin cutting him apart like all the others. I am fascinated by his skull, so I decapitate him, leave him to decompose and bleach his skull. The rest of the body I, you sure you want to hear this?”

“Yes, go on, please.”

“Nail his body to a cross and, uhm, put the skull on a stick in front of the cemetery. Dad didn’t like it. I can’t remember his exact words. But he made me bury the cadaver. That’s when I stopped. I didn’t want to upset him any further.”

“How did you feel when you did all this?”

“I wasn’t angry or anything like that. Like I said, I didn’t kill them, I didn’t want to hurt them. I was just interested in their organs. The bones.”

Bill watches as Holden scribbles something down while Dahmer finishes his cigarette; giving Bill ample opportunity to offer him another should he stop being cooperative during the progression of the interview.

Holden turns the pages of his dossier; Bill keeps watching Dahmer. The guy is as silent as a grave, doesn’t even try to glance at what they’ve written down.

Bill picks up the line of conversation before they lose him to his musing, “What did you do instead? You said you had a lot of free time, your dad made you stop dissecting the animals,” Bill shrugs, “so what did you do instead?”

Dahmer exhales on a long sigh. “I can’t remember if I did anything, anything noteworthy after that. It was a normal childhood. At some point, I don’t know when, probably when I was thirteen or fourteen, I started drinking. Doing Marijuana.”

“Alcohol? Beer or…”

“Started with beer. Went on to liquor and spirits eventually. Wine.”

Holden straightens his back.

“At fourteen?”

“Not the high percentage stuff. That came later. I started drinking my junior year of high school.”

“Your drinking consumed all of your time?”

“Yeah.”

“Why do you think that is?”

Dahmer raises his coffee to his mouth, clanging his cuffs against the table in the process. They should ask Kennedy to get rid of them at some point. Sooner rather than later. 

“By that age my parents were constantly fighting. They, so involved with each other, they don’t care about me or my brother. They didn’t make it easy being at home,” he pauses, thinks. “School was better. I had friends. We had some good times but... It was a huge taboo. You didn’t talk about this kind of stuff.”

Bill chests tightens, air flow restricted by the invisible hand of the past grabbing him by the throat. Uncomfortably, intimately, familiar with what Dahmer is describing, Bill tries to keep his face clear of any emotions.

“You mean being homosexual?” Holden asks softly, empathically. Bill wishes he wouldn’t.

“Right.”

“When did you feel there was something different about you?”

“Oh I knew, I knew what my orientation was around 13 but I, uhm, wasn’t really sure until I made out with this boy from across the street. We were both the same age. It, it was consensual. In a fort. That’s…that’s when I knew.”

“Was he your first sexual experience?”

“Yeah, that was really the first time, but it was just very light sex, kissing, holding that type of thing.”

“How old were you at that time?”

“I was fourteen, he was fourteen, something like that. It was consensual.”

Bill feels a tight knot forming in the pit of his stomach while he writes down _consensual? Signs of dominant, controlling personality age 14._ He tries not to think about his first time, Holden’s first time, much less what would have happened if any of it hadn’t been consensual. If someone had -

“Did it work out? I mean, did you start seeing each other?” Holden keeps asking.

“Not like that, no. We never really talked about it again.”

“Was there any particular person you put your trust in? That you confined in?”

“No. Just me and myself. “

“You kept to yourself?”

“Right.”

“Throughout your high school days?”

“I didn’t talk to anybody. There was a lot going on at home…”

“You mean the fighting?”

“I am one year away from graduating, they are in the middle of the divorce,” he sighs, closing his eyes as if recalling a painful memory, “Fighting over custody for David. I started shutting down during the divorce proceedings. It was my way of shutting out any painful thoughts. Just taking an attitude of not caring to save myself the pain of what was going on with the divorce. That was effective. It worked. Maybe it started then. Dad had moved out of the house and was living in a Motel nearby by the time I finished high school.”

Discarding ash onto the floor next to him, Bill stores his cigarette between his lips and ignores the smoke drifting into his eyes as he writes down _maybe it started then, compulsion at 17._

“You said your mom left. What do you mean by that?”

“I uhm I have just turned eighteen, and mom, she can’t bear staying at the house. I think she couldn’t bear to see me any longer, so she takes David. Leaves.”

Holden waits until Dahmer empties his coffee, probably cold by now, for his next strike.

“Mom’s gone, dad’s not living at home. You’ve got the house to yourself, that right?” Dahmer nods. “You don’t call him to tell what has happened?”

“Being eighteen I don’t think I have to.”

“Okay, fair enough. I probably would do the same. Not every day you get a house to yourself. But you’re alone out there, doing what? Drinking? Watching TV?”

“Right.” 

“Then you run out of food, out of alcohol. You need replenishment.”

Bill sees the transformation in Dahmer, sees the guarded look. He knows what’s coming, bracing for it. Ever the acute observer, Holden must have no trouble seeing it, too. “I’d like to ask you some questions about the night you murdered Steven Hicks.”

A bone-deep exhaustion flashes in his eyes as he regards Bill and Holden. “Okay, uhm can I – can I get another cigarette? And some water before we continue?”

Holden pauses the tape. Bill takes a deep breath in trepidation of what’s to come. The knot in the pit of his stomach is growing, gnawing, grievous. A pit his stomach is truly becoming, a dark and deep and bottomless pit. He never should have agreed to come. 


	3. Chapter 3

This time they both get up from their seats to leave the room, collecting the empty cups on their way out. Bill needs some fresh air and Holden needs to play maid to their esteemed guest. Outside, the younger man immediately entices a conversation by asking, “What do you think?”

“That something is seriously wrong with him,” he answers quickly like a shot. 

“Well, yes. I’m talking about his exceptional responsiveness.”

“Yeah,” Bill winces, omitting to say that he doesn’t know if he’s ready to listen to everything Dahmer has to say, bites his tongue to avoid blurting out other undignified observations.

Like he promised, Kennedy is in the break room as they enter to get a refill for their interviewee. “How’s it going?” he asks, stirring a spoon lazily around his black, police standard issued porcelain cup.

Holden, getting a cup of water, is the one answering, “I’m not going to lie to you. It’s been a while since we had someone so talkative, it’s a blessing.”

“Blessing huh?” Kennedy asks skeptically.

“What he means is,” Bill intercepts with a scowl, “the benefits are immense when a perpetrator talks to us as openly as Mr. Dahmer does.” The fact that he still needs to salvage Holden’s botched attempts at conversation doesn’t help to calm his already frayed nerves. Not only was he forced to come out here and talk to another damaged individual, no, but he also has to keep his partner in check. As if this was 1982 and they were back in Atlanta.

Worst of all, time seems to have passed quickly while Dahmer kept talking in perfect, excruciating detail about everything they asked him, which meant the interview wasn’t close to being finished today. The requirement for a follow up visit was inevitable at this point. 

At the mood-dampening prospect, Bill turns to Holden, “Let’s go back.” And remembering his request for Kennedy adds, “Oh, and detective could we get the keys for the handcuffs?”

“You want to uncuff him?”

“He won’t run, believe me. If he does, he won’t come far.”

Kennedy catches his eyes, pulls the keys from his belt with a jangling jiggle and gives them to Bill with confidence, “No, he won’t.”

Carrying keys and water in their hands, he and Holden walk back to the interview room. Before they enter it, Bill catches Holden’s attention by calling his name. Holden’s face is open and receptive as he regards Bill.

“I know he’s fascinating to you but please, be careful. If not for your sake, then for mine. I don’t like the way he’s looking at you.”

“The way he’s looking at me?” Holden whispers, eyebrows almost knitting together in doubt. “Don’t worry, Bill. I have it under control.” 

Scrutinizing Holden’s features, he searches for traces of a lie or false bravado and finding no such things, nods. He should’ve perceived it as the warning sign it was.

Opening the door, it’s almost like Dahmer hasn’t moved a muscle in the smoke-hazy room. He looks surprised as Bill walks towards him instead of opposite him. Bill doesn’t look at his eyes as he says, “Hands on the table” to uncuff his wrists.

The avoidance of eye contact leads to eyes roaming over Bill’s face, but he ignores it in favor of getting the cuffs off as fast as possible. Metal clangs against metal. Reaching a hand into his pocket, Bill, in an unsubtle manner, produces another cigarette and offers it to Dahmer, who takes it and puts it between his lips. He’s uncomfortably close as the zippo snaps alive and lights the cigarette between the other man’s lips.

“Thanks,” he mumbles around the smoke in his mouth. 

Holden has already taken his previous seat and is perusing the file, waiting for Bill to finish so he can continue the interview. He waits until Bill is sitting down, and Dahmer’s attention is on him, then presses play and says, “We were about to talk about your first victim. Steven Hicks.”

“Right.”

“What can you tell me about the night you killed him? Did you stalk him beforehand?”

Dahmer, bestowing Holden with his full attention by turning to him and letting his eyes trap him like an insect under a microscope, exhales cigarette smoke, “No, uhm, it was opportunistic. I had these desires for a while and –”

“Sorry,” Holden cuts him off, taking notes, “What desires?”

It’s the first time Dahmer looks away and stays quiet. After a while and with a long sigh he answers, “To kill someone. Own them in a, uh, literal sense.”

“And when did you start having those desires?”

“When I was six, six, when I was about fifteen or sixteen. Those fantasies started entering my head, why they did I don’t know. I never thought it would really happen, but everything was set up so perfectly that one time in Ohio…”

“With Steven Hicks?”

“Yeah, yeah. That’s no excuse for it, but it’s just weird how everything was just perfect that one time. You wouldn’t understand. I didn’t understand it myself.”

“You mean the desires?”

Dahmer takes a large gulp of his water, rubs his knuckles over his lips afterwards. With annoyance Holden realizes that he is losing him. Trying a different approach, he asks, “So would you say you had a lot of experience?” 

That intrigues Dahmer; confuses him too. “With what?” 

Making a decision Holden says, “Other guys?”

“I grew up in the 70s. The Midwest, Agent – uh sorry I never got your name.”

“Ford. Holden is fine.”

“The answer is no, Holden. Only this one time with the boy across the street. I didn’t have a lot of opportunities or, uh, the courage to find out if there were, you know, boys like me. I guess you can’t relate to that.”

“What makes you say that?” The question is said before he can regret it, his mouth working faster than his brain. Only later does he realize that Dahmer was fishing for an equal exchange. Once secret for another.

“A man like you.”

“Man like me?”

“Handsome,” he stops, “Heterosexual.”

Holden doesn’t take the time to think before he gives himself away. “I’m not.”

An uncomfortable silence settles over the room like a heavy blanket. Suffocating the very air. Holden can feel Bill’s stare dissecting the side of his face, trying to drill into his mind to make him stop talking. No time to explain himself, no time to apologize or ask for permission. He’ll further incur Bill’s anger but no matter. Summarily he makes a second damning decision.

“I’m currently in a relationship with another man.”

Dahmer’s dead eyes look at him imploringly, gauging the sincerity of his statement. “He loves you?”

“I’m pretty sure he does.”

“How do you know? How do you know he won’t leave?”

“He shows me, every day. Just last night I was balls deep inside him.” Ignoring the palpable heat of Bill’s anger, he mirrors Dahmer’s position – hands in his lap, open, vulnerable, “An asshole will suck your cock right in, literally. It’s like a hole that sucks. It’s easy. You know what I’m talking about, right? And the way he took it - oof, wrapped his legs around me, wouldn’t let me go.”

“I never liked them moving around. I wanted them to stay. I wanted –”

“Total domination?”

“Right.”

A secret for a secret. Truffles. 

“We didn’t, Jeff, we didn’t talk in great detail about that fantasy. What was it you’d be seeing when you closed your eyes? What would make you feel aroused? What exactly was it?” 

“Yeah, thoughts of a good looking well-built young guy, having total control over him...uh, uh I don’t know if killing ever came into it, came into play but if it was the only way to keep him then that would be done.

That one time in Ohio, I picked up this good-looking hitchhiker. He, uh, he wanted to go to some concert. Invited him over. He said yes. Had the house for myself. I asked him if he wanted some beer. We drank, uh, had sex, but after a while he wanted to leave and I, I didn’t want him to leave. So I pick up this barbell and hit him over the head, then I strangle him. 

I was out of my mind with fear that night. I didn’t know what do you. I had gone to such an extreme. Paced the house for a while. I end up, uh, I did masturbate.” 

He pauses his narration of events to wet his throat. 

“Later that night I take the body to the crawl space. The next day I have to figure out a way to dispose of the evidence. Buy a knife, a hunting knife. I uh feel uncomfortable talking about in on tape, not knowing who is going to be listening. Ehm, this part, do you guys need this on tape? “

He looks at Holden for comfort and confirmation. “Yes.”

“I’ll just give you the general description. Go back the next night, slid the belly open, cut each piece... bagged each piece. It was trial and error. I really didn’t know much about the anatomy at that time. I didn’t know how to dispose of remains but once I started doing it...it became sexually exciting to me.”

His eyes never leave Holden’s as he finishes his account and takes a drag of his cigarette.

“Nothing has really been normal since then. After it happened, I tried to live as normally as possible. I tried to bury it, but things like that don’t stay buried.”

“How did you hide this from your parents?”

“I dissolved the parts I didn’t bag in acid. Flushed them down the toilet.”

“Everything?”

“I uh, the bones I smashed to pieces, scattered them in my cemetery. The animal cemetery that is. But I already told the detectives. That’s been gone over many times so, uhm you just have to ask them.”

He’s making it clear he’s done talking about Steven Hicks.

“So no one knew, you kept it to yourself all these years?”

Dahmer sighs, “No, never. Mom had fled to Chippewa Falls with David, dad lived somewhere else already and when the divorce came through... One, uh or two months after the incident dad came over to see David. But it was only me at the house. Uhm...mom violated the requirements and dad was awarded custody of David and the both of us moved in with him.”

With deliberate slow movements he stubs out the cigarette in grey ashtray until it resides at the bottom; crumbled and extinguished.

“Did you go onto college then?”

“For three months.”

“Where was that at?”

“Ohio State. And drank, literally drank my way out of that.” 

“What did you do instead?” Holden knows the answer of course.

“I uh, I went to the military, thought that would be good for me. Dad thought it would be good for me. Drank my way out of that one too.”

“Uh huh,” Holden noncommittedly remarks, hoping for more forthcoming information but that’s not the case. Somehow he’s oddly secretive about that part. “These obsessions that you speak about, I mean, how were you able to control yourself while you were in college and going through high school and on into the service?”

“Heavy drinking... pornography, masturbation.” He didn’t even take a moment to think. 

“That satisfied your needs at the time.” He tries to keep an accusing tone out of his voice, the scepsis.

“Right. But once I had the opportunity and the uh, a place where I could actually make these fantasies come true then trying to hold them back was, just seemed to be too much,” he stops and adds with lowered voice in the manner of secrecy, leaning slightly forward, “Desire grew and grew more constant, stronger.”

Holden mirrors his position again, leans forward, speaking in a hushed voice, “So once you were able to obtain your own apartment, your own place...”

“Even before that,” Dahmer admits.

“Even before?”

The tape recorder splits the stifling air with a click, cassette stopping its hypnotic rounds, to indicate that it’s full. Pulled from his near-trance state, Holden leans back and is surprised to find Bill slamming the key onto the table and storming out the door. Reluctant to implicate himself or Bill, Holden gives Dahmer a half-smile and receives one in return.

“Thank you, Jeffrey. Uhm, we could go on, but I think that has been enough for one meeting, don’t you think?” He begins packing away the recorder, the tape and the case file. “I’d like to talk to you about the other killings, though. So let’s arrange another meeting, yes?”

Standing, he takes the small silver key. Dahmer cooperates without hesitation – raises his hands and patiently waits for Holden to put the handcuffs on him again.

“You know where to find me, Holden,” he says, catching Holden’s eyes. “Thanks for listening to me. I’m sorry I made your _partner_ uncomfortable.”

Bill is deep in conversation with Detective Kennedy as Holden eventually emerges from the interview room and is being told that the two seniors have taken residence at Kennedy’s little cubicle. Being left out and feeling therefore the same way, Holden awkwardly approaches them, hoping he comes across as contrite enough. If the way Bill had reacted to Holden’s tactic is any indication, he can’t imagine he’d told Kennedy what exactly has happened.

Holden knows he should feel apologetic, but he doesn’t, can’t even bring himself to contemplate the idea. He hadn’t named Bill and if someone at the FBI took offence at what was said, he has no qualms fabricating a lie stating the necessity for such a vulgar approach. And if he is not believed, well, he doesn’t care what others think about him. He is an integral part of the BSU; at this point it’s easier to gloss the whole affair over than to fire him and try to find an explanation for doing so.

“…to Columbia Correctional Institution up in Portage,” Kennedy finishes his sentence as Holden comes into earshot. Kennedy nods at him and repeats his words, “I just told Agent Tench that Dahmer will be transferred –”

“To Columbia Correctional. I heard, thanks, detective. I told your colleagues to bring him back to his cell.”

“No problem. So, uhm, you’ll be interviewing him again then?” he asks, gaze travelling between the two of them curiously.

Holden opens his mouth to answer –

Bill interrupts before he can utter a singly syllable, “I don’t think that will be the case. It’s pretty clear to me that Mr. Dahmer was of sound mind when he committed the murders.”

“I don’t think we should act with precipitation. We barely scraped the surface.”

With barely concealed anger Bill turns to him, “Do you have any doubts about his sanity?”

Taking a deep,sharp breath Holden avoids rising to the bait, “I’m not a licensed psychiatrist if you’re asking like that. He’s certainly sane enough to talk about his crimes and mental processes.”

“There you have it. What else do you need?”

Kennedy, totally forgotten, clears his throat. “Listen, just send me your assessment. If you decide to talk to him again? Great, let me know. The more we have on him, the better. And the less likely his lawyer will try an insanity defense.” Kennedy sighs, “Good Lord, do I even want to know what was going through his head?”

Putting a cigarette into his mouth and pulling a grimace, Bills says, “Probably not. Look, if it’s alright with you, I’d like to call it a day.”

“Yeah, sure,” Kennedy says amicably.

He accompanies them down to the entrance and shakes their hands in goodbye, cursing at the reporters waiting outside before turning his back on them. Ignoring the crowd once again, Bill and Holden more or less sprint to their car and leave the Police Department behind. 

The problem is – they might leave it behind physically but mentally they’re still in that smoke-filled room. Bill chain-smoking doesn’t help dispel the image of Dahmer sitting there with his dead face and even deader voice. Opposed to be the one to break the silence holds Holden back for a few minutes. But as always, he is not as patient as Bill, which means nothing in the face of Bill’s own impatient nature.

“He wanted me to tell you he was sorry for making you uncomfortable.” 

“What the hell were you thinking, Holden?!” Bill bursts out, throwing the cigarette out the window and rolling it back up. “This kind of behavior was undue when it only endangered yourself –”

“Endangered?”

“But you can’t tell shit like that to this asshole when it involves me! You told him how much you enjoy fucking me. Do you know what he’s gonna do tonight? He’ll be thinking about killing you, raping you and taking photos of the fucked-up things he’ll do to you.”

“Is this what it is about? You know I’m not his type.”

“You told him a very personal story that involves me, Holden! I forbid you of ever doing you again you hear me?!”

“You’re forbidding me?”

“Damn right.”

Shocked at Bill’s domineering disposition, Holden wonders: “What are you really angry about? When’s the last time you were skittish about giving personal information to get them talking? Wait. Are you afraid someone in the department will know I was talking about you?”

Holden’s vociferous articulated deliberations don’t help to smother the fire. “You know what Holden? How about you shut the fuck up?”

That wouldn’t do. Quickly this conversation has become hurtful, spiteful.

“No, Bill, I won’t. You can’t talk to me like that.”

“I can as long as you tell a serial killer how tight my asshole is!”

Struck speechless by the abnormal crass manner of speaking, Holden stammers, “I, I didn’t – ”

“Not another word, Holden. I swear, I’m this close to killing you myself.”

Holden takes a good long look at Bill’s pinched features staring at the traffic in front of them and shuts his mouth. It’s dawning on him that he’s crossed a boundary that might have damaged their relationship irrevocably. He’ll make it up to Bill. 

Biting his lip, Holden turns his head away and watches the citizens of Milwaukee going about their business. Already, his mind is analysing the interview, dissecting Dahmer’s answers in search for the underlying truth of his statements. 

After parking the car, Bill storms into the hotel lobby, Holden hot on his heels. Thankfully he’d kept quiet after their argument. He wasn’t kidding when he said he harbored murderous intent towards his partner. _His lover_. The same lover who told Jeffrey fucking Dahmer that he was engaging in a borderline illegal relationship, who told a convicted, known homosexual killer that he enjoyed being balls deep inside Bill. Part of him is still in denial of these admissions being on tape for the whole of the BSU, the students, the FBI to hear. And this unfathomable idiot didn’t even show an ounce of decorum and apologized.

As he approaches the receptionist, Bill tries to find his own equilibrium. The lady who is about to serve him, doesn’t deserve his displeasure.

Pulling his badge and ID from the inside of his coat, he greets the smiling young woman and says, “Tench, I have a reservation.”

She slides the document from the counter courteously, “Of course, Agent Tench. Just a moment, please.” Holden has slid up next to him and procures his own documents. “And Ford.” One after another she processes their request and finally returns badges and IDs, together with two key cards.

“Have a pleasant evening, gentlemen.”

Bill musters a lackadaisical “Thanks” and turns to leave. Naturally, Holden follows him to the elevator. Equally naturally he can’t stay quiet for too long.

“Do you want to have dinner?”

“Not hungry.”

“All right,” Holden mumbles assiduous. “Well, I’m gonna get something downstairs if you change your mind.”

Bill doesn’t even deign to answer with a grunt.

When the elevator arrives on their floor, he hurries to his room and disappears, not granting Holden one last glance or word of reconciliation. He’s pissed. And rightly so. Holden has really taken the cake this time. Now he can choke on it for all Bill cares.

Inside the blessed silence of his room, Bill undresses, anger smoldering, not entirely gone. He throws his briefcase and jacket on and over a chair next to a small table and makes for the bathroom while loosening his tie.

With a sigh he takes off the rest of his clothes and hops into the shower, hoping the cold water can calm his heated temper. It doesn’t yield the desired effect. Instead, Holden’s words keep repeating in his head, leaving his insides all twisted and pounding as if bruised.

Turning the knob back to hot he begins shampooing his hair, fingers massaging his head. This too only marginally helps to ease his mind. He takes another five minutes to rinse hotel-standard soap from his body, feeling as if the soot of Dahmer is still clinging to his skin.

As he climbs out of the shower and dries himself, he entertains the thought of ordering room service, if only to eat out of habit, but dismisses it. 

His day ends miserably and angry and alone in bed. He turns the TV and the lamp next to his bed on, grabs his cigarettes and tries to quiet his mind as well as his desire to have Holden next to him by watching some stupid show. 

A while later, the phone rings two times before Bill reaches for it, suspicious.

“Tench.”

“Hey, it’s me.”

And with that his initial cordiality towards the stranger on the phone dissipates and turns to frustration and erupting anger as his suspicion is confirmed, “What do you want, Holden?”

“May I come over? I thought we could talk or, you know…” he trails off, giving Bill the opportunity to fill the gap with his wishes. Unfortunately, they don’t correspond with Holden’s.

“You may not,” he enunciates every word grudgingly and discards the cigarette between his fingers.

“What? You serious?”

“Deadly. And don’t you dare knock on my door.” With flourish he hangs up and exchanges phone for remote control, surfing the channels until he finds something which doesn’t remind him of Dahmer (who played Holden like a fiddle) or Holden (who doesn’t come knocking at his door) or his fucking work until he falls asleep. He can’t bear the thought that his team will listen to the interview in the near future; will parse it for valuable insights. He can’t decide which was worse - Holden’s inconsiderate approach or Bill’s inability to stop him as he sat frozen with terror.


	4. Chapter 4

Holden is nursing his hot coffee in the chair opposite Wendy and watches patiently as she listens. Her eyes are turned towards the window overlooking the surrounding forest before they suddenly snap to Holden, her eyebrows raised in appalled alarmed. _Oh_ , Holden thinks, _she got to that part_. She doesn’t give herself a reprieve, though, but picks up a pen and scribbles a few sentences down. Not long after, she gingerly slides the headphones from her head and puts them down on her desk in front of her.

“What do you think?” Holden asks, finger fiddling with the rim of the cup.

Wendy’s gaze travels to her open door. She stands, closes it and walks over to the sofa positioned against the wall.

“His honesty is veiled by self-serving truths, yours instead –”

Holden groans, head falling into his neck to look at the ceiling. Turning to look at Wendy he says, “Not you, too.”

“Excuse me, but what you did was extremely dangerous and heedless.”

“Nobody is going to care. I will say it was a tactic to get him talking and nobody will bat an eye.”

“Bill cares. Am I right?”

Ashamed Holden turns his eyes away from her inquisitive ones, fidgets on his chair and eventually decides to join Wendy, sitting down next to her. “He is furious with me.”

“Is?”

“We haven’t had a proper conversation since we came back.”

“Can you blame him?”

“C’mon no one will know I was talking about him.”

“He knows, Holden,” she pauses, then, “Did you apologize to him?”

“I tried to, he’s ignoring me.”

Leaning his elbows on his thighs, Holden looks into his cup as if the answer could be revealed by the dark brown, lukewarm coffee. Maybe some higher power could let the liquid slosh this or that way… 

Wendy doesn’t stay silent for too long. “I know you’re very progressive and nonchalant about your sexuality, but you can’t force your attitudes onto others. Things have gotten better, but people still hold prejudices. Even against themselves. You don’t know how lucky you are in your relationship with Bill.”

“Do I hear a modicum of sympathy for Dahmer?”

Wendy sighs. “When I revealed my sexual orientations during the Henley interview, Bill immediately knew I hadn’t lied. He came to me, asking if I wanted to talk. I denied it at first, scared he would tell Gunn and I would lose my job.”

Surprised by Wendy’s uncharacteristic openness, Holden gives her his full attention.

“I told myself it was a stupid assumption and invited him over to my place for drinks. We’ve been friends for a very long time and yet, I still felt nervous telling him something so private. It took him months after that conversation to admit he understood better than I assumed. Bill grew up in another time and a different set of – moral standards. It was difficult for him to accept that part of himself, and even more difficult to take the leap of faith with you.”

Her voice tapers off in a natural manner, leaving Holden to ponder the underlying subtext to her anecdote. As he is about to thank her, a knock on her door interrupts them. It opens to reveal Bill poking his head in, “Am I interrupting?”

“Not at all,” Wendy says, waving him in. “I was in the middle of reprimanding Holden for his methods.”

Bill’s face darkens with a scowl, “So you heard.”

“I’m sorry, Bill,” Holden jumps in before Wendy can say something else. He stays seated, looking at Bill with pleading eyes. “I didn’t think when I said those things. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean – I didn’t want to hurt you.”

Bill’s scowl doesn’t immediately vanish. Several seconds pass, seconds which feel like minutes, before he takes a few steps towards Holden and runs his fingers through Holden’s hair, releasing it from its carefully arranged coiffure. It’s as much of an acceptance he will get outside of the privacy of their house. Bill sits down onto the unoccupied chair Holden has left behind.

“You are surrounded by sharp-minded agents who see through bullshit for a living, Holden. They will hear the tape and know you weren’t lying. And maybe they won’t care.” Bill holds up a hand to stop Holden’s protest, “What I’m saying is, you put us both in danger. They only need to put two and two together. Jim for example knows we moved in together. What if he stops believing it wasn’t for house sharing? What if he decides he doesn’t like that and tells Gunn, or worse, Webster?”

“Jim wouldn’t do that.”

Bill sighs and reaches for his cigarettes. “You’re right, Jim wouldn’t. Not even Gregg. But you never know who’d take it as an affront.”

Holden gives a quick nod of his head and swallows before saying, “It shouldn’t be. It shouldn’t matter. He would have been caught sooner if -”

“Let me stop you right there.” His finger demonstratively draws a circle in the air, “Don’t even think of saying that or what you were about to say in any context, whatsoever, anywhere but here.”

Holden bites his tongue and visibly deflates. Just because his opinion might seem risky, he doesn’t change it. Bill and he are a good team, they are good agents, and they shouldn’t be judged by what is going on in their bedroom. No one should, not even someone like Dahmer. Judged for killing these men, not for feeling attracted to them. And if the police or even Dahmer’s social worker would have cared more instead of denouncing him based on his sexual orientation, some of these men would still be alive.

Mood turned sour and coffee turned cold, he looks at the pensive faces of Wendy and Bill. When he catches Wendy’s eyes, she says with a small smile, “I’ll have Patricia do the transcript. She won’t mind the language.”

Taking the olive branch, Holden replies, “And she’s quick.”

“And she’s quick,” Wendy confirms and with an air of finality says, “Go back to your cases, we’ll talk about it another time.”

Bill isn’t exactly comfortable with another person listening to the interview, nor with anyone analyzing it, but at least Holden has shown some remorse for the first time since his fuck up. As they leave Wendy’s office, he lightly pushes his younger partner towards his own office and closes the door behind him.

For a few uncomfortable moments, the silence stretches between them as they regard each other.

Holden breaks it, “Are we okay?”

“We always are. We had a disagreement, Holden, these things are bound to happen. It’s not the first time. Nor the last.”

Holden crosses his arm. “No. But it was the first time you punished me with silence. And I’m not talking about your demand for me to shut the fuck up as if I’m your misbehaving child.” 

At the vulnerable, hurt tone in Holden’s voice, Bill’s chest clenches. “I deserve that. Except Brian doesn’t open his mouth in the first place.”

The joke falls flat. “I’m sorry, too. Happy?”

“Not really,” Holden answers with a pinched expression. “I meant it, Bill. Doesn’t it bother you?”

“There’s a lot bothering me, but it is what it is for now. We’re in no position to make a change.”

“Aren’t we? Well, me with my mouth shut certainly can’t.”

“Holden -”

Holden uncrosses his arms and takes a tentative step towards Bill, his hands holding the lapels of his suit, eyes on the ugly grey tie. Clearing his throat, he straightens the lapels, the tie, hands lingering on Bill’s chest before he steps back again.

“There are some cases I need to evaluate. Help me?” _Some_ – funny. Both their desks are overflowing with cases.

Bill nods without saying it, putting on a brave smile. He doesn’t feel like anything is resolved, not his personal feelings on the matter, not the underlying conflict because of them, not the unanswered question of how to continue with Dahmer. For now, he doesn’t know how to approach any of those problems, so he nods and follows Holden into his office across from Bill’s.

*

The latchkey makes a scraping noise inside the quiet of the dark house. Careful not to fall over any stray shoes, Bill opens the door and turns on the light in the hallway, followed by Holden.

Slipping out of his dress shoes and his coat, a low grunt of satisfaction leaves Bill’s throat. Compared to the past two days in which home meant punishing silence, Holden looks forward to spending the evening in Bill’s company. Bill said he’d stay, instead of running off to the golf course, and cook.

At the thought of a homemade meal, Holden’s stomach makes itself known with a rumbling sound even Bill can hear in the quiet of the hallway. Chuckling, he walks deeper into the house, turning on the light in the living room and the bedroom. Holden finds him there, changing into more comfortable clothes.

“What’s for dinner?” he asks in a low tone, ready to get a change of clothes himself.

“Don’t know yet. Whatever the half-empty fridge has to offer.”

As Bill walks past him to get to the kitchen, he stops for a moment, lingering at Holden’s side, and bends down to drop a kiss against his cheek. Smiling, Holden leans into the gesture before Bill continues his way onward to prepare dinner.

Unable to stop the smile, Holden gathers his clothes and disappears into the bathroom for a nice, warm shower. He takes his time under the hot spray, going through his usual routine and then some, hoping Bill might be inclined to have sex now that they’re talking again.

As he leaves the warm cocoon of the bathroom, he can hear Bill faintly humming to the tunes of Diana Ross coming from the stereo and the sound of sizzling meat. He walks down the hallway, but rather than joining Bill in the kitchen, he vanishes into his office. Turning on the light, he takes a seat at his desk. They’ve started working on a new book not too long ago and Holden, energized, wants to do some revision, as well as assessing their newest case as long as he can draw on the energy coursing through him. He reaches for the unfinished first draft and begins reading. Perhaps something useful can be extracted from Jeffrey Dahmer’s crimes to be analyzed with regards to long-lasting positive effects in law enforcement. 

Bill calls him not much later with a bellowing: “Dinner’s ready!” Closing the door on his way out, he tries to lock up the thoughts of Dahmer with it, if only for a night. Despite what Bill might think, Holden is capable enough to behave himself.

Even with the door to the patio wide open, the smell of food is heavy in the kitchen as he enters. But Holden’s doesn’t complain. He takes a deep breath, filling his nose and lungs with the hearty scent and joins Bill at the table, where a plate with steak and roasted potatoes is already waiting for him.

“Looks delicious,” he comments, reaching for the glass of wine and taking an interested sniff.

Bill, fork and knife in hand, begins cutting into his meat without preamble. “Enjoy.”

And enjoy, Holden does; savoring the tenderness of the meat, the well-seasoned potatoes, and the dry red wine which perfectly complements the food. It’s turning out to be a good night - their worries and the argument forgotten.

Although cleaning up after dinner happens in comfortable silence, each lost in their own thoughts and routine motions, so ingrained they’ve become automatic, it doesn’t feel like something is amiss or as if the last two days were characterized by anger. 

Once finished with their tasks Bill asks, “You wanna watch a movie?” They settle down for the night on the couch, cuddled together, desperate for warmth after so long without. Bill is in his usual position, sitting at the end closest to the screen while Holden occupies the rest of the couch, stretching his limbs and leaning into Bill, who winds his arm around Holden’s frame without further ado. Safe and loved like this, Holden doesn’t care which movie is playing on the television. The only thing he wants right now, is to enjoy Bill being close to him.

He must have drifted off at some point for he wakes up to Bill gently shaking his shoulder, telling him to get up and into bed. Groaning and with the greatest reluctance, he follows the instructions and walks the short distance from living room to bathroom to brush his teeth. More alert after his nap and quick cleaning up, he crawls underneath the covers of their bed to wait for Bill as he draws the blinds and turns off the lights in the house. Merely the light from the bathroom illuminates Bill as he eventually emerges in the bedroom, until this light is also turned off with a flick of his wrist over the light switch.

Holden waits for Bill to get into the bed with a satisfied sigh, for him to find a comfortable position before he slides over and catches Bill in a one-armed hug.

“Hi,” he whispers and receives a warm, “Hi” in return. At the thought of being intimate with Bill, of having him inside him, arousal is slowly dissolving in his gut like benzodiazepine directly fed into his bloodstream. 

When he leans closer to kiss Bill, Bill rolls onto his side, his arm coming around Holden to lightly caress his back. In spite of the enjoyment he gets from the loving touch, Holden has other ideas. Pushing one leg between Bill’s, he rolls his hips into Bill’s in one effortless motion, pressing his half-hard dick against Bill’s soft one, making his intentions known. The arm around him tightens, holding him closer, as his mouth softly brushes along Bill’s. His own arm smooths along Bill’s strong back down to his backside, while his lips begin to firmly press against Bill’s.

Grabbing a handful, he pushes them further together, kneading ample flesh, moaning quietly against Bill’s half-open devouring mouth. Arousal now growing into full-blown lust, his mouth begins to wander down to Bill’s jaw, further down, pressing his face into the crook of Bill’s neck to kiss his throat. Shivers race across his body like lightning at the faint smell of cologne and soft skin.

He can feel Bill’s hand burning a path to his ass, mirroring Holden’s position, slipping underneath his pajamas and briefs, his finger tantalizing close to his cleft. Holden pushes back against the finger, silently begging for Bill to get the lube and hurry up, but no such thing happens. Agonizingly slow, he moves between Holden’s cheeks, brushing his rim with a gentle but dry finger.

With another moan, Holden pushes forward again, hoping to get satisfying friction from the front, from Bill’s hard cock. But as he rolls his hips again, mouth warm and wet against Bill’s neck, thinking he’ll find him in much the same state as Holden, he freezes as he doesn’t.

Taking deep, calming breaths, he scoots a few inches back to look at Bill and sees his pained expression.

“What is it?” he pants, out of breath as if he’d run a marathon.

The hand on his ass retreats and lovingly cradles his face. “I’m sorry,” Bill says softly and kisses his lips, no trace of passion, but a whole lot of regret instead. His thumb circles Holden’s cheekbone, warm and soothing. “I’m not – in the mood.”

The hand Holden had down Bill’s pajamas comes to rest on Bill’s chest, feeling his heart beating hard and fast underneath his palm. “Is there anything I can do? Did – did I do something wrong?”

Bill doesn’t answer him, only swallows and audibly sighs. Holden feels lost. He doesn’t know what the problem is and if Bill doesn’t talk to him, he can’t figure it out unless he begins unravelling the evening in his mind, the whole day, the past – oh.

“Are you still mad at me?”

“No,” Bill quickly reassures him, turning on his back. Timidly, he sneaks an arm around Holden and urges him to cuddle up to Bill. With his face to the ceiling he continues, “It’s this whole case, Hold. I keep thinking about the interview and about all the people who will hear what was said. That’s what bothers me the most.”

“That people will know I also enjoy the company of men? Or that they will think I enjoy your company a little more than I should? Or that they might lump him and me together?”

Bill takes a moment to think. “All of that, yes.”

What Bill doesn’t admit, but what Holden can hear between the lines, is his fear of having the whole truth revealed. He’s worried for Holden, even more worried about himself – his image and reputation – but there’s also another worry, one Holden can’t uproot or fight or argue with.

In the darkness of their room, Bill makes another confession, “I can’t stop thinking about those polaroids. What he did to them.”

Holden doesn’t know what to say or how to soothe Bill other than wrap himself around Bill like a leaden blanket until Bill falls asleep. He himself doesn’t fall asleep for a long time, thinking about the dilemma he finds himself in. He wants to interview Dahmer again, too intrigued by what he has to say, loath to fall by the wayside, and yet he also doesn’t want to put Bill in an uncomfortable position.

Bill is talking to him again, but won’t touch him, he grimly reflects and wonders, if it was worth it.

*

Over the course of the next two days Holden keeps pondering Wendy’s words, Bill’s discomfort and his own ambitions. The morning after his botched seduction, there’s a tenseness to his and Bill’s interaction that continues to be there for the remainder of the day.

At work, they go their separate ways. The palpable mementos of the reason for the current strain in their relationship are sitting on his desk in his office: the transcribed interview, together with the tape. Stomach in knots, he pushes the transcript aside to be copied and distributed at a later time.

With the abundance of cases on his desk, Holden spends his morning and noon writing up profiles and talking to officers via the phone, able to forget about Dahmer all together. Until he is about to leave his office to teach a class about the triumvirate of early signs of a psychopathic personality and his phone once again rings. Sighing at the inconvenience, he picks up with a half-hearted greeting. It’s SAC Kenzie from Milwaukee.

A few pleasantries are exchanged and when Holden tells him he is on his way to teach, Kenzie jumps right ahead, “Are you going to talk to Dahmer again?”

Forehead wrinkled in confusion, Holden answers, “We haven’t decided yet. Why?”

“Maybe what I’m about to say will help you come to a decision. We’re investigating if Dahmer was involved in a child abduction back when he was living in Miami.”

“Kidnapping?” Holden asks dubiously.

“In his criminal record it says he was convicted for enticement of a minor. Who’s to say he didn’t try it sooner?”

Holden takes a moment to think before he answers, something Bill has been vigorously teaching him and begging him to do.

“I wouldn’t hitch my wagon to Dahmer – his signature is different. I mean, if he had kidnapped and killed a child in Miami, we would know by now.”

“Hmm, I hear ya, still…We have eyewitnesses placing him at the scene of the crime.”

Holden rubs his fingers over his eyes. “If there are eyewitnesses, you should definitely investigate that thread, just don’t expect it to lead to Dahmer.” He winces at his choice of words, curses inwardly as his eyes fall on the clock on the wall. “I’ll run it by my colleagues. Personally speaking, we should interview him again, but I can’t do anything without asking for my team’s consent. How about I keep you updated, Kenzie?”

“Thanks, Ford.”

“Sure. Talk to you later.”

Hanging up, Holden grabs his briefcase and notes, and hurries out his office and across the building. He’s barely punctual, with only a few minutes to spare, and receives bemused smiles, some of them behind hiding hands, others open and directed at him.

“Emergency call,” he apologizes and begins setting everything up for his lecture. Teaching young, sharp minds takes his own off the pending questions waiting to be resolved, if only for ninety blissful minutes.

Afterwards, though, he heads back to his office and is faced with the inevitable. Standing at his desk, he digs up the file and tape, gripping it in his hands and looks at the small font telling him what’s inside them. Standing there, the interview comes back to his mind as if he’d captured it in amber, for him to examine it whenever he pleases.

Bill pulls him out of his reverie by knocking at his door frame. “I’m heading home, you’re coming?”

Holden nods, fingers tight around the document in his hands. Bill’s eyes naturally drift towards it.

“The Dahmer interview?” he inquires, sounding like he swallowed gravel. 

“Yeah. Let me just – I’ll just need to copy it for the others.” Holden catches Bill’s eyes, trying to telepathically apologize once more.

“I’ll wait outside.”

“Bill –,” Holden stops him, not knowing why or what he is going to say. Bill waits, patiently, looking at him expectantly. Holden could tell him about the phone call, he could take three steps to brush his fingers innocuously against Bill’s in a gesture of affection and reassurance, but in this moment, his body isn’t his own anymore.

Giving Holden a smile in a simulacrum of sympathy, Bill walks on.

Holden can’t bring himself to pick up the topic for the rest of the evening, not in the car and certainly not in their home.

The next morning, and two days after the conversation in Wendy's office and Holden's apology to Bill, Bill, Wendy, Holden, Jim and Gregg sit at the table in the conference room with the transcript of the interview in their hands. If Gregg has any opinion on Holden’s technique, he doesn’t show it, and if Jim had managed to put two and two together, then he only shows it by glancing up at Holden and returning his eyes to the papers almost instantly. Bill would like to be anywhere else but here. Since he can't magically disappear, he opts to light a cigarette instead, to calm his nerves. And since when is he this squeamish anyway? 

Holden begins by addressing the fact the interview ended after the discussion of the first murder: “We should consider interviewing him again.”

“We should,” Wendy interrupts, “talk about what we can glean from this one first.”

“SAC Kenzie from Milwaukee called me yesterday,” Holden stops as Wendy’s lips purse and the muscles in her jaw clench in an expression of discontent. “They want us to grill him about a potential child abduction in Miami. He’s, ah, a suspect.” 

Wendy moves in her chair, leaning against the backrest. “Let’s disregard that for a moment and talk about the interview you already conducted.”

The look she throws him begs no disobedience and with a pout Holden mirrors her position and leans against the back of his chair to get comfortable, gesturing with his hand for her to go on.

“Aside from the obvious, his turbulent upbringing and parent’s neglect, he admits he alone is to blame.”

“He’s empathizing again and again that no outside influences were responsible for his disorders,” Holden adds.

Wendy nods, “Yes, but his awareness of his own pathology only goes so far as to state these ‘desires’, as he calls them, originated from somewhere inside of him.” She flips through the pages. “What’s interesting is his equation of his sexuality with his crimes, or lack thereof. He is not able to draw the connection between his ineffective social environment in childhood and his subsequent desire to dominate and keep his lovers with him, no matter how. Or his alcoholism.”

“Or his necrophilic fantasies,” Jim says.

Eyes alight at his input, Wendy leans toward Jim. “Astounding, isn’t it? I stumbled over that as well. He said, ‘but once I started doing it, it became sexually exciting to me’.”

Bill, ashing his cigarette says, “He contradicts himself all the time.”

“That’s what I told Holden,” Wendy nods, “Self-serving truths. He is only as honest as he deems necessary or useful. He claims to have had these fantasies for a long time, and he admitted to dissecting animals, but when he has the chance to act on them on a human being, he does by chance? Unlikely.” 

“So how did these fantasies begin in the first place?” Jim asks. 

“They were obviously a product of his loneliness, social isolation and the emotional turmoil due to his homosexuality, and developed over a long period of time.”

Bill appreciates that she stays professional, that she doesn’t use Holden’s inappropriate statements to try to get him to contribute or explain Dahmer’s behavior based on his own orientation brought to light.

“I wonder why he didn’t pursue a relationship with that boy across the street,” Gregg says, drawing everyone’s attention. But it is Holden he looks at. “I would have asked him why it didn’t work out.”

“Because something happened,” Bill interjects, the sick feeling in his stomach returning and spreading like a heating poison through his veins. “He was stressing the fact it was consensual. I don’t believe him.”

Wendy speaks next, “Let’s say he was telling the truth and it was consensual, can you imagine someone as isolated and disturbed as him pursuing a relationship? It was likely the opposite. He gave in to his desire to be with another boy and felt shame in the aftermath of this illicit act. They would have had to keep the relationship a secret.”

Gregg’s eyes bashfully lower to look at his hands in his lap. A strange atmosphere has taken hold of the room, as if someone had left the window wide open on an icy winter’s day. While Jim is taking notes, Wendy’s eyes seek Bill’s and Holden’s. Bill has no idea what she sees in Holden’s gaze, but the look she is giving him is brimming with compassion and something akin to pity. 

At length, Jim puts down his pen and says, “So a combination of childhood neglect and self-hatred, his inability to stop his sexual orientation, fueled his fantasy life and his desire for power.”

Wendy nods sharply, “Yes. He couldn’t control this aspect of his personality - or his life - so he sought it somewhere else.”

“Okay, he has the opportunity to kill someone, acts on his fantasies and then, what? Stops? Just like that? De-escalation instead of escalation? No stressor?”

“I tried to get him to open up,” Holden says, has Jim give a snort of laughter and gives him the evil eye in return, “As I said, I tried to get him to talk about his time after school, but he wouldn’t elaborate. From what we know, nobody just stops and then does this.” He ends by pointing to the polaroid pictures attached to the folder, the ones Bill can’t look at, the ones at which Bill turns his head away and takes a long drag of his cigarette to fill his mouth with nicotine instead of bile.

“Well,” Wendy says, “he didn’t. I mean, yes he stopped but then he recommenced when he killed Steven Tuomi and we know that it was a downward spiral from there on.” She quickly thumbs through the papers and adds, “What his stressors were is not discernible. He simply saw the opportunity and seized it.”

“There must have been more than that happening in the interim, Wendy,” Holden counters.

The stand-off doesn’t last for long as Bill discards his cigarette and says, “I noted down genetic disorder. He said his mother was struggling with mental illness. Is it possible he inherited it and it was responsible for his behavior?”

Wendy sighs, “We simply don’t know enough about genetically inherited mental illnesses to completely rule it out. My gut feeling tells me this isn’t the case with him. If you want a definitive answer to that, you will have to ask a psychiatrist to evaluate him.”

“Are you sure?” Holden asks with a frown, obviously unsatisfied with the inconclusive statements.

“All right,” Wendy says exasperated, “Since Holden is so keen on speaking to Mr. Dahmer again, why don’t we get this annoyance out of the way as quickly as possible.” Gregg looks like a deer in the headlights, Jim is sporting his ‘Holden-you-are-a-nuisance’ expression. “Let’s vote on it, shall we? All in favor of a follow up interview raise their hands.”


	5. Chapter 5

Portage, Wisconsin

Columbia Correctional Facility

August 2nd, 1991

“I can’t believe I have to talk to this guy again,” Bill mutters under his breath, looking out the window while the cigarette between his lips pollutes the air inside the vehicle, burning the inside of Holden’s nose. Holden, who is driving for once, spares him merely a fleeting glance. “You didn’t have to come. I could have interviewed him by myself.”

“No fucking way,” Bill scoffs and turns to his partner, “Besides, whatever excuse I would have given not to come along, would have made me look like a fucking homophobe. Or a coward.”

This time Holden scoffs, “No one thinks that of you.”

Bill doesn’t know whether the words comfort him or cause even greater anxiety and paranoia. He doesn’t get the opportunity to answer as the car slowly comes to a stop in front of the gates of Columbia Correctional Institution and Holden rolls the window down to show their badges and the correlating right to access the grounds of the facility.

“Maybe I should take Jim with me on my next visit,” Holden casually states as he finds a parking spot.

Bill’s stomach drops at the multitude of facts strewn into this one simple sentence – Holden wants to talk to Dahmer again, Holden doesn’t want him there, Holden thinks –

“You think the murders were racially motivated and want to use Jim as bait?” Bill asks, shocked, getting out of the car. He drops his cigarette on the gravel and grinds it under his foot as he watches Holden getting out on the other side.

Walking around the car, they fall into step. Holden replies, “Maybe. Most of his victims were ethnic minorities. I'll ask Jim what he thinks.”

“They also were a lot younger and fitter than Jim.”

Inside the oppressing, dark walls of the correctional facility their steps lead them to the reception, where a guard jovially greets them and hands them the familiar papers to sign. The conversation is short and when they enter the facility proper the usual sounds of daily prison life bombard them.

“I’m just saying, you wouldn’t have to come,” Holden says, picking up their conversation as they’re being led to a quiet quarter of the prison and into a room whose layout reminds Bill of the room in which they interviewed Kemper so many years ago. The windows on the left are barred; pallid light is falling in squares across the grey concrete floor and equally grey opposite concrete wall. The noise of everyday prison life is dampened, barely audible. 

The guard excuses himself and leaves the two of them to set up one of the tables with the tape recorder. It's been a while since they had to explain their interest in talking to convicted offenders of violent crimes; had their existence and methods condemned as outlandish. 

“And let Jim be potentially objectified? Bad enough you let it happen voluntarily.”

Holden, in the middle of getting rid of his jacket, stops with a stifled squawk: “What did you say?”

Any further statements on the matter are halted by the metallic sound of chains rattling. With bated breath they watch as Dahmer is shepherded by yet another prison guard, who has his hand causally wrapped around his arm, along the corridor on the other side of where they’ve come from. The barred doors reveal his unaltered tall and haggard physique inside a baggy, red prison uniform. With a rustle of keys, the guard opens it and gently guides Dahmer into the room; the red clashing in the grey space around them. It is probably more courtesy than what a man of his criminal calibre deserves. 

Dahmer looks genuinely surprised to see them. Bill silently taps his own wrists to indicate to the guard he should release Dahmer. The guard shrugs and follows the instructions.

“Good morning, Agent Ford,” Dahmer greets in his usual calm tone of voice.

“It’s Holden, Jeff. And good morning to you too. Please,” palms upwards, he points to one of the chairs, “have a seat.”

They wait until Dahmer is seated and the guard has left, then take the seats across from him. From his messenger bag, Holden pulls a brown paper bag containing a ham sandwich. “We figured you might be hungry,” Holden says as ways of explanation and plants the bag in front of Dahmer. During his solitary stay on the third floor in one of Milwaukee Police Station’s jails, the man across from him hadn’t been a huge fan of wheat or greens - favoring the meat, according to the officers’ reports. Curious, Holden regards Dahmer as he reaches a tentative hand out to the bag, takes the sandwich and unwraps it from its transparent foil.

“Thank you,” he says and takes a bite without disposing of any unwanted ingredients first. 

“Would you like a coffee?”

Chewing the sandwich, Dahmer nods.

Holden turns to Bill, the question on the tip of his tongue, and sees the recently developed perpetual scowl on Bill’s face. His arms are crossed in front of his chest, eyebrow raised in silent challenge.

“Could you -?”

Sighing, Bill rises from his seat to knock on the bars of the door and disappears with brisk steps down the hall, accompanied by the guard.

Knowing that this meeting is scheduled to end as soon as the lunch bell rings, Holden loses no time to get a cassette into the tape recorder. “How are you, Jeffrey?” he asks while he gets his notepad and pen next, plugs in the microphone for better recording quality and positions it on the table between them.

“Good, I guess. How are you?”

 _Not good_ , he thinks and lies, “Fine. Tired to be honest. We had to get an early flight to be here on time.”

Dahmer takes another bite, eyes wandering to the unoccupied seat next to Holden. “How’s your boyfriend?”

Struck by the unexpected personal question, Holden blinks, heart beating against his ribcage like a trapped bird. He can feel the heat of embarrassment creeping up his neck and ears, the need to put his clammy hand into his pocket and procure his pills. He wouldn’t mind swallowing them dry. 

“Fine. He’s ah,” Holden eventually says, stuttering on the ‘he’, “he’s got a lot going on.”

Dahmer is seemingly unbothered by his discomfort. 

“Is he jealous?”

“Jealous?” Holden asks confused, trying to keep his face under control.

“I would be.”

Bill returning to the room prevents Holden from asking _Why would you be jealous? And: Who would you be jealous of? And: For what reason?_

If the aim of the question was to further throw him off, then Dahmer has achieved what he had set out to do. While Bill adds the coffee and an ashtray to the items already on the table, Holden swallows on a dry throat and takes a few deep breaths to find his composure. He is not going to swallow Xanax in front of Dahmer and expose more than necessary of himself, like he promised. He waits until Bill has settled into a comfortable position on his chair, to roll up his sleeves and cool himself from the heat of panic setting him ablaze, and presses the record button.

“The following interview will be a taped interview, the date is going to be 8-2-91 and it’s going to be at 1030 hours. This interview is going to be taken from Jeffrey Lionel Dahmer. He is presently incarcerated at the Columbia Correctional Facility in Wisconsin. Also present at this time is Agent Tench of the Quantico FBI Office.”

Arms crossed atop the table, Holden looks at Dahmer. His face doesn’t change as he takes another bite from his sandwich and simply waits for the agent to continue. A thought crosses his mind: _He’s completely focused on me. Maybe Bill is on to something._ It’s clear to him what he must do: create a reality in which Dahmer forgets about the second person in the room and subsequently attaches himself emotionally to Holden. 

“As I told you the last time we met, Jeff,” he begins, “my main purpose of coming up here was to speak to you about your activities before, during and after the murders. We stopped our last interview as we were speaking about your career at the military. I’d like to pick up our conversation from there. Your service and your arrival in Florida.”

Dahmer nods, swallows and stops eating in preparation of answering the questions.

“Did you ever return to Germany?”

“Ah, no. I had no reason to.”

“And you said during your time in Germany pornography and masturbation was enough is that right?”

“Right.”

“How come?” Holden presses, but Dahmer only shrugs and keeps eating. “You didn’t go to any clubs? Didn’t approach anyone?”

“Uh, well,” Dahmer says between bites, chewing fast, “There was that time I was approached. I was working at a hospital, Lansthole hospital and…uh one of the sergeant majors I think he was either type of sergeant with two bars underneath or three…he had his own apartment and one night I was drinking in the local N.C.O club. He approached me, said he had a party going on back at his place, asked me if I wanted to go back. I said sure…and we went back, turned out there was nobody in the apartment, just him. And he lights up this bowl of hash, smoked some hash, drank some beer. He goes, takes his shower, comes back and tries to get me to hop in bed with him. I said, “No thanks” so I just go walking out, staggering out after that hash.” 

Holden waits until Dahmer, who has picked up his coffee, takes a sip.

“Nothing happened?”

“Uh, no.”

“He didn’t take advantage of you?”

“No.”

“Why did you decline his offer?”

“He wasn’t my type.”

Holden knew exactly what Dahmer meant by type – athletic as he had put it; defenseless as Holden had concluded.

“So we both know you were discharged because of the alcohol. When did you first arrive in South Florida and how did you get there?”

“Ok, I was discharged six months early from the – the service for, uh, drinking too much. I didn’t want to be discharged early but they, they did. So when I arrived in, I think it was South Carolina from Germany they processed me out and that they’d give me a plane ticket to anywhere in the United States that I wanted to go. And I didn’t want to…I didn’t want to go home right away because I didn’t feel comfortable explaining to my folks why I was out six months early. So I decided that Miami, Florida would be a nice warm place to go. They flew me down there. I arrived, I think, at the end of March.”

“Did you ever take up residency with another person that may have had an apartment or home?”

“Never.”

“You pretty much kept to yourself?”

“Uh huh. Worked a lot.”

“Yeah? Where?” 

“Different, uh all kinds of jobs. One time I, uh worked at this blood donor center because, I thought I had this medical training and it, uh would come in handy.”

“Did it?”

“Yeah, uh, yeah.”

Something about his statement, about the way he looks at the table and up at Holden again, makes Holden want to know more. Belligerent he asks,“Why did you stay there? Sounds like it was a good job.”

Silence, then after a beat, “I got fired.”

“For drinking?”

“Yes, for drinking. But not the usual drinking.” Dahmer doesn’t elaborate, his gaze travelling to the wall behind Holden’s head. As realization hits him, gut churning, Holden has to bite his tongue to prevent his jaw from hitting the floor.

“You drank blood.”

Dahmer’s silence is enough of an answer. Holden notes down _drinking blood?_ and proceeds. His mind is itching to discuss this aspect of Dahmer’s personality with Bill.

“From whom?”

“A guy I found attractive.” 

“Can you tell me why? What made you do it?” 

“He… was attractive and I wanted to own a piece of him. Wanted something of his with me.” 

Holden nods as if in empathy. Strangely enough he finds a part of him can truly empathize with it. It’s the part of him that enjoys pleasuring Bill - enjoyed pleasuring Debbie - with his mouth, that enjoys swallowing the fruits of his labor. 

“So, were you also having a problem with alcohol at that time?”

“Yeah.”

“Every day?”

“Not every day cause I’d have to work but on the weekends and it got worse towards the end because I ended up drinking on my bank account. And that’s why I moved back to…”

Now that they were already on the subject of addictions and mental problems, Holden breaches one of the subjects they discussed back at Quantico, “What about medication? Did you have to take any prescribed medication? For depression or something like that?”

“No,” he shakes his head.

“No... okay. Would you say your tolerance for alcohol is high? I can barely hold my liquor most of the time.”

“I, I can hold an awful lot of liquor, it takes an awful lot to get me drunk, so yeah. I have a big tolerance for alcohol.”

“When you’re consuming large amounts of alcohol, do you recall what you do? Do you have control of your faculties?”

“99% of the time I do.”

Holden takes a break to take some notes, giving Dahmer time to finish his sandwich and drink his coffee. Left out of the conversation entirely, Bill has started smoking and is halfway through his first cigarette. He offers one to Dahmer as he sees the man peeking at the one between his fingers.

Making sure he is capturing Dahmer's full attention, Holden looks up from his notepad to put Dahmer under scrutiny, “Well, thanks Jeff for being so honest about this. I found our conversation last time to be very open and honest and I feel like I have to be honest with you, too. The main reason we came back today is because we need to know if you had anything to do with the abduction of Adam Walsh.”

There is actual annoyance on his face as he answers, “I didn’t. You probably heard all the false leads about I supposedly had done something to some women in Germany, that was proven to be just bunk.”

Holden wrinkles his forehead, “No, I didn’t hear that.”

“Talk to my lawyer. He knows all about that stuff.”

Still surprised, Holden promises he will. That Dahmer seems to regularly talk to his lawyer doesn’t go unnoticed. It might complicate things in the future should the lawyer deem it unsafe for his client to talk to the FBI. 

“And people said they saw me in Arizona and in California. Never been there. I told Detective Kennedy that I wanted to clear my conscience of everyone. So uh, wouldn’t make, it wouldn’t make any sense to be trying to hide that.”

Rubbing his fingertips together, Holden leans back in his seat, trying to appear casual. He hadn’t been suspicious before, but now - 

“You know as an individual, even me, I would be embarrassed of something that I’ve done in life. You know, I might divulge certain things but there are some things that I would keep secret. Maybe take to my grave with me.”

“Well, I don’t want to do that,” Dahmer says vehemently, “So that’s why I spilled everything. I was hopeless to hide anything anymore. I am done hiding any longer.”

He’s trying not to look at Bill, not to think about him, them, as the words pierce him deeply, keeps trying to focus on Dahmer.

“You had nothing to do with the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not because you’re afraid of the death penalty in Florida, is it?”

“I would welcome the death penalty.”

Cigarette smoke swirls in the air between them, the smell overriding the smell of prison. Through the deafening silence the sound of the cassette stopping is like a shot being fired. 

Acutely aware that Dahmer, for some reason, intently watches his hands as Holden opens the tape recorder to turn the cassette around, he tries to avoid eye contact and be quick. Finished, he hides them underneath the table. 

“You’re not embarrassed then because it’s a child?”

“Never went after children. My interest was in older adults of bar age and all of them that I met I thought were uh, bar age.”

“Except Konerak wasn’t of age.”

“I thought he was of age. So did the police. He looked older.“

“What about the numerous charges after you moved back to Wisconsin? The indecent exposure? Paying a minor to take photos of him? You even drugged him. What were you trying to achieve?”

Dahmer blinks slowly, his eyes focused on the table as he sucks on his cigarette and exhales, licking his lips as if to fetch the last of the bitter taste from his lips.

“These urges never left…”

“Increased?”

“Yeah the desire just increased and I wanted to, uh, wanted to keep them in check. But there was never any desire to, uhm, molest any children. It wasn’t about that. It was about the control and uhm I don’t know why I did that thing at the festival. Maybe because of the alcohol. I, I really tried. I didn’t want to disappoint my grandma.”

“Why your grandmother?”

“After I had moved back to Bath, it didn’t take long, uh, until my father threw me out of the house. Did that because of the drinking. He thought living with grandma would be good for me.”

“Sounds like a formidable lady.”

Dahmer shrugs, takes the last drag of his cigarette and puts it out in the ashtray with deliberate stabs.

“She tried her best, made me go to church and…do all kinds of chores around the house. I even got the job at Ambrosia,” he confirms, and after a pause continues, “Stole a mannequin once, thought I could find, uh, gratification in it after I was banned from the bath houses. She made me return it. When I did those things, you know, the exposure and…uh, she tried to help me instead of making me feel, uh she didn’t punish me.” 

Fascinated by the newly uncovered well of information, Holden takes another few quick notes, nothing more than bullet points about victimology and Dahmer’s relationship to his grandmother.

“Why did you get banned from the bath houses?”

“I told you I didn’t like them moving around.”

Holden takes a deep breath, a knot forming in his throat. “Right.”

“I…drugged them so they wouldn’t move around. It gave me a sense of total control and increased the sexual thrill I guess. Knowing that I had total control over them and that I could do with them as I wished. That was the motivation.”

Speaking past the knot he says, “None of these men pressed rape charges?”

“Not with the police. They told the management, that’s why…”

“You got banned.”

“Right.”

“Let me get this straight, after that you switched from lively to lifeless? You knew what you wanted.”

“Yes. Uhm.” His eyes jump to the tape recorder, then to Bill. “You think I could snatch another?”

Bill leans forward, “Sure.”

Holden waits until nicotine fills Dahmer’s mouth again.

“Is there something you like to share? About your desires?”

Head tilted downward, his eyes underneath his big glasses are fixated on Holden as he leans forward. “I began browsing the obituary column after I had to return the mannequin.” 

“Really?”

“Scanned until I found someone who uhm, appealed to me. I went to the funeral home to look at the body.”

“Did you like what you saw?”

Dahmer nods. “I waited until after burial.”

“You dug up the body?”

“No. I mean, I tried, but the earth was frozen, and it became too arduous and uhm eventually I decided to give up. I think that’s why I eventually killed again.” 

“You mean Steven Tuomi.”

“Uh huh, yeah.”

He takes a brief moment to get the file from his bag and thumbs through it. Picking up the thread of conversation he continues, “You said you didn’t remember killing him. What happened that night, Jeff?”

“Okay, uh. I go to this bar. I wasn’t looking for anything, I just wanted to have a drink.”

“Opportunistic.”

“Right. I see this guy, I buy him a drink. Had a good night so I ask him if he wants to get out. We go the Ambassador Hotel, which was, uh a lot of gay guys used it for, you know, spending the night together. I didn’t want to kill him. We got to the hotel and I wanted, you know, do the usual routine, drug him, uhm…”

“Rape him,” Holden fills in the silence, suppressing the anger.

“Yeah. I must have accidentally drugged myself or maybe I drank too much, I, like I said, I can’t remember what happened. I blacked out and the next morning, when I woke up, he had black and blue bruises on his chest, there was blood coming from his mouth because of his crushed rib cage I guess. I must have tried to, uhm, get to his heart.”

Holden waits as he sucks on his cigarette, taking his time, exhales. Inhales once more, the tiny orange-red dot glowing, burning the cigarette fast. 

“What happens next?”

“I panicked. But not as much as when I killed the first guy. After a while I calm down, leave the hotel, buy a suitcase, go back, put him in the suitcase. Rigor mortis hadn’t set in yet. Then I called a taxi. The driver, he helped me put the suitcase in the trunk. He even joked. He asked me if I was carrying bricks in there… or something. So I went back home and…And dismember him, use a sledgehammer to pulverize his bones. Took me, uh, took me hours. I kept his head, put the rest of the remains in the trash or flushed them down the toilet…boil the head, bleach it.”

“Did it sexually excite you?”

“It did. Cutting them open and touching parts of their bodies no one had ever touched before was arousing.”

Dahmer leans back in his seat, savors the last drag of his cigarette. 

“I had no intention of doing anything like that, never have done that on purpose. But after that, it all started again, I couldn’t stop.”

“How did you go about finding your victims?”

“The bars or sometimes on the street. I wanted to make sure they would come with me so I offered them money.”

“How much?”

“Uhm, five, fifty bucks most of the time.”

“For sexual favors?”

“Sometimes. Either sex or for taking their pictures, but that came later. Never did that while living with my grandmother.”

“Like a beefcake magazine?” Holden asks, fully aware the worst of them were anything but that. 

A very small, very secretive smile appears on Dahmer’s face. The smile is for Holden only, the meaning only discernible for those in the know.

“Yeah. Like that.”

“But after enganging in sex or taking their pictures you would kill them.”

Dahmer sighs, “First I drugged them. Always drugged them. And I bought handcuffs at the arms supply and uh, did that after they were drugged. I handcuffed them. I wasn’t interested in torture, that’s not what interested me. All I wanted to do was make it quick and painless for them. I know it sounds ridiculous for me to say that but that’s what my goals was. So I’d have complete control over them, so I wouldn’t have to worry about them leaving in the morning and I could fulfill my fantasies.”

“So you apparently did have a conscience about these people experiencing pain.” 

“That’s why I gave them the sleeping pills before...yeah. And it usually worked.” 

“How?”

“Offered them rum and coke or I’d say “let’s have some coffee with some Irish creme in it”. Mixed the smashed sleeping pills in their drinks so it would dissolve, you know. And that would be it, within half an hour they’d be asleep.”

“What kind?”

“Halcium. Once they were unconscious I would…” Dahmer tapers off, muttering something to himself Holden can’t hear. Carefully he tries to instigate a louder iterance of his statement, “You would have sex with the body.”

“Right, yeah. Have sex with them prior and afterwards. Did that three times. Three times, uhm. The fourth time my grandma almost noticed.”

“She hadn’t before?”

“No.”

“Why now all of a sudden?”

Dahmer shrugs. “I don’t know. The guy was already drugged and she must have woken up for some reason. She saw him and uhm, she knew about my orientation and had tolerated it until that night. But that night she told me no uhm nightly visitors were allowed. I had to decide, on the spot, I had to decide what to do with him. I called a cab and had him driven to the hospital, gave the cabbie some story about too much to drink. That incident was…”

“She threw you out.”

“Right,” he whispers. “So in September 1988, must have been September, I moved into my first apartment. But that uh didn’t work out because of the charges.”

“The second-degree sexual assault of a minor.”

“Yes. Like I said. I didn’t know. These boys working on the streets or uhm, you know, standing in front of the bars, they looked older.”

“Did you let him escape? Did you have second thoughts or had any desire to be apprehended?” 

“No. I didn't think of that. I didn't wish for someone to stop me, I wanted to, uh fulfill my fantasies. I know that sounds awful. It was pure coincidence he escaped. Pure coincidence.” 

“The charges made you go live with your grandmother again?”

“Uh huh. She gave me a second chance. In exchange for getting, getting my life sorted out.”

Pen scraping over paper softly, eyes averted in concentration, Holden asks, “What did your counselor say to all this? Didn’t they check in with you?”

“She barely saw me. We barely talked. I think she was overworked…and I knew, uhm I knew how to behave myself. Show her that I was getting better, that I had it under control. That went on even after my sentence. A few times I was honest and told her, told her in my own way that I needed help, but she always replied I should find a way to deal with my desires.”

“And you did.”

Dahmer nods. “Shortly before my... hearing I killed again. I found this uhm exceptionally attractive guy. I do the usual routine, pay him, bring him home, uhm, you know.”

“You mean drug him, kill him?”

“Right. “

“Had sex with his body.”

“I didn’t want to dispose of him completely. I wanted –” Dahmer stops to look at the table in a moment of contemplation and reminiscence. Looking at Holden again, eyes unnaturally blue and focused, he continues, “I wanted to preserve his beauty. That’s why…I kept the most beautiful parts.” 

Dahmer’s intertwined fingers unwind atop the table. Bill, who has been mostly silent throughout the interview, silently offers another cigarette, which is taken with words of gratitude. Sucked into the heart of Dahmer’s darkness, he’s almost forgotten about his presence. Fresh nicotine fills the air, the vapor finding his way into Holden’s nostrils. Bill’s silence can be construed as proof of his professionalism. But it doesn’t feel like that. To Holden it feels like speech-choking fury. Underneath the table Holden folds his hands, fingertips pressing against his metacarpal bones. 

“Which parts?

“His head, his hands and his genitals. I preserved them with acetone.” 

“How did you learn which chemicals to use?” he croaks. 

“That was trial and error. I had called a couple taxidermists, pretended that I was, wanted to uh dry out rabbit skins or something like that. And there was this pharmacy nearby, where you could buy gallons of chloroform, ether, formaldehyde, so it’s pretty convenient.”

“Uh huh. Jeff, I know you were sentenced, and I know you did well during your sentence because they released you early for good behavior. How did you rein in your desires?”

“I had the mummified parts in a small metal casket in a locker at the factory. Knowing he was there and I could look at him before I had to go to prison in the evenings, uhm, it…was enough. Upon my release, though, I knew I had to get my own place again. I was desperate to…The apartment I found wasn’t in the best of neighborhoods. That helped. When I moved into North Street I took the parts with me. I killed the next guy the day I moved in.”

As if on convenient cue the loud ringing of the bell announces the temporary end of their interview. Rudely teleported out of the little private bubble Holden had managed to erect around them, he takes a deep breath. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d gotten during the conversation. Now he subtly tries to shake it off while he waits for the bell to stop its cacophonous cry.

Dahmer finishes his cigarette and a look into the recording device reveals a near empty tape.

“This interview is temporarily terminated and will be continued on another day,” Holden speaks, slightly leaning over the recorder and stops the recording. From outside, footsteps approach and the same guard who had brought Dahmer to them is getting ready to take him away.

In unison all three of them rise from their chairs. Emboldened by the familiarity he’s established, Holden holds out his hand for Dahmer to shake; Dahmer’s is a little rough and cold, very cold, as Holden’s takes it to say goodbye. His shake is strong, but not uncomfortably so. And long, longer than necessary. 

“Thank you. I really appreciated our talk. I’ll see to it we can continue this conversation as soon as possible.”

Dahmer drops Holden’s hand to let the guard – Hank as he is addressed by the inmate – put the handcuffs back on his wrists. “Sure. I’ll try to think about it some more, you know. Thanks for the sandwich.” Turning to Bill he says, “And the cigarettes.”

Then he is shuffled out of the room while the door behind them is opened to reveal their appointed guard, keys at the ready and waiting to escort them out of Columbia Correctional. His body language is making it unequivocally clear that there’s no time to share any freshly emerged insights, even if Holden is panting to discuss his thoughts with Bill. Hurrying, they pack their things and follow him through the winding corridors of the prison, collect their guns and leave while no word is spoken, making the walk feel uncomfortably longer than it is. Holden is repeating details of the interview in his mind while the sour expression on Bill’s face, he can spot from the corner of his eyes, supports Holden’s earlier assertion.

Outside, the sun’s brutal heat is awaiting them, but does nothing to unfreeze the icy mood. The day has barely begun and already a gaping, continually widening maw is opening up between them. Back in Milwaukee a vastly more difficult and troublesome meeting awaits them. Holden estimates he has about two hours to bridge that gap before it further tears them apart. 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments & concrit appreciated. If you spot a mistake, feel free to point it out.


End file.
